


Behind Blue Eyes

by aprilclash



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Blindness, Consent Issues, Emotional Manipulation, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, First Time, Fist Fights, Heavy Drinking, M/M, Mentions of Mental Illness, Mentions of homophobia, Power Imbalance, Sexual Fantasy, Slow Build, Violence, mentions of domestic abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-09 19:53:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 48,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8909827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aprilclash/pseuds/aprilclash
Summary: Baekhyun is, among many things, (blind and angry) in love with Chanyeol. Chanyeol is, among many things, (manipulative and persistent) in love with Baekhyun. It only takes them a few years to understand how a relationship works.





	1. We’re all kind of weird and twisted and drowning.

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Behind Blue Eyes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10862868) by [wllzft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wllzft/pseuds/wllzft)



> The blind!Baekhyun character studio that should've helped me get out of my writer's block and ended up being a full length novella. I also half-assed the summary because that's the kind of thing I do.  
> \- The fic is already over and I'll post one chapter every day.  
> \- Please read the tags carefully! (Also, if you think I forgot to tag something, let me know and I'll edit.)  
> \- I tried my best and I researched extensively about blindness and the life of blind people and also about the setting before I started writing this fic but there could be inaccuracies.  
> \- I'm not a big fan of mixing Korean and English, but you'll sometimes find Korean suffixes in this fic and Korean words (mostly names of food) in italics. I'll leave the translation in the notes at the end of the fic when I can.  
> \- Title comes from Behind Blue Eyes by The Who (though I usually listen to the Limp Bizkit cover)  
> \- I'd like to thank everyone who said a word for this fic, I only got here thanks to you all. Ele, Cla and Ash for reading this mess. Meg for giving me her opinions and advice on healthy and unhealthy degrees of manipulation in a relationship. Poh and Cècile for being kind enough to edit the worse mistakes out of this big mess. Silvia for being my most loyal minion, for her beautiful words of encouragement and her beautiful fanarts.  
> \- Mostly, remember that this is just a work of fiction, so please be polite and enjoy <3

  
_We’re all kind of weird and twisted and drowning._  
— Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

  
**i. BELLICOSE**  
(adj) aggressive, hostile

“ _Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed._ ”

“Oh, dear, your accent is awful.”

Chanyeol needs the money. Nothing else matters. Chanyeol needs the money and Mrs. Kim pays an awful lot of money and that’s everything he cares about.

“ _Thrice, and once the hedge-pig whined._ ”

“Is my mother not paying you enough? I know you can afford a tutor. It would really help, you know?”

 _He needs the money._ He repeats the words, one by one, in his head, when things get difficult, when _Baekhyun_ gets difficult. He realizes, at times like this, that Mrs. Kim is not buying his time, his patience or his loyalty. Mrs. Kim is buying his humiliation for her son’s amusement. That, too, is fine, as long as Chanyeol gets what he needs. He’s never been picky about the means as long as he can get to his own end.

“ _Harpier cries, ‘Tis time, ‘tis time._ ”

“Why did you slow down?”

“There’s a figure. Do you want me to describe it?”

Pink lips curl in a disdainful pout. Baekhyun _wants_ him to describe it, but he doesn’t want to ask. Chanyeol sighs.

“The three witches are dancing around the cauldron.”

“I never asked but you sure are doing a poor job at it. You didn’t describe the witches, or the cauldron, or the background.” Baekhyun’s tone is awfully petulant and Chanyeol wants nothing more than to interrupt him, just to make him shut up, but he doesn’t think he can endure another nervous fit today. “Come on, then. At least tell me about the colors, don’t be useless.”

Chanyeol bites his lips.

“There are no colors, it’s a black and white figure.”

“You’re lying. You’re an awful liar. You really want to get fired, don’t you, Park Chanyeol?”

It’s a game, all of this. To Baekhyun, the game is _how far can I push Chanyeol before he snaps?_ but to Chanyeol the game is _how much can I endure before I kill the little wretch here and now_?

But Chanyeol needs the money. He knows and Baekhyun knows and that’s why he’s here, staring at Baekhyun even though he knows it makes him mad. Baekhyun can’t stare back, doesn’t even know where to turn to stare back, but he can always feel Chanyeol’s eyes on his face. He has a sixth sense for it.

“Stop it.”

“Stop doing what?”

“Stop it, Chanyeol, I’m not in the mood for games.”

“If only, Baekhyun-ssi.”

For a moment, Baekhyun’s chiseled features morph into a mask of rage, fists tightening on the luscious fabric of the sofa cushions as anger fills his whole body. Except his eyes. Baekhyun’s eyes are always empty.

“I wish I was paying you, so I could personally dock your salary.”

“Then you wouldn’t have anyone to torment, and you’d be lonely, Baekhyun. _Baekhyun-ssi_ ,” he adds, after a moment of silence, the cold politeness hitting Baekhyun like a slap.

Chanyeol is treading on thin ice and he knows. It’s not like he doesn’t know how to win this game, but he can’t afford to deal with the consequences of humiliating Baekhyun. The last time he tried, the retaliation lasted two weeks. Two weeks without seeing Baekhyun are two weeks without money and Chanyeol can’t possibly afford to pay the bills and the rent without Mrs. Kim’s money. And yet those two weeks he felt lighter than he ever felt in the last two years. He spent his newly acquired free time in the streets of Hongdae, laughing and dancing and being irresponsible and free, drinking with friends and going out with girls and just being _outside_ , in the sun. Away from the heavy darkness permeating the Kim estate and its foreign western style. Away from suffocating velvet curtains and satin sheets and Persian carpets and dust. From the invaluable collection of dolls Mrs. Kim keeps in her home, the most precious one being her son. 

Baekhyun can’t see the dolls. He can’t see his own face either. Chanyeol wonders if someone ever told him how much he resembles one of his mother’s porcelain puppets, precious, expensive, collector’s edition. Baekhyun is blind. Not completely - not yet, at least - but enough for him to be an ass about it. He can see vague, blurry looking shapes, if there’s enough light. He walks in the thick darkness of his house like a lost spirit cursed to a limbo of fog and night.

Chanyeol loathes the house, an old, Western style mansion built in the Thirties by Mrs. Kim’s grandfather. He hates its unnecessarily expensive furniture that screams of nonchalant wealth, of old money and ostentation. He hates the owner and his employer, Mrs. Kim, her magenta-stained thin lips and her perfect perm. He hates the maids, the butlers and the security staff, but more than anyone else he hates Baekhyun, who lives in the darkness and doesn’t want to be told the truth. Baekhyun, who only has Chanyeol to talk to.

After those two weeks, Chanyeol came back, groveling and begging for forgiveness, and Baekhyun pretended not to care about him, but all the maids had a different story to tell.

“He didn’t want to eat anymore. Mrs. Kim was worried he would do something extreme. It wouldn’t even be the first time,” they said, hushed and allusive. And Chanyeol wanted to ask, he wanted to pry, maybe he even wanted to care, but he didn’t. 

He can’t make it personal if he wants to keep this job. More than that, he can’t feel pity for Baekhyun. Baekhyun would know - _he would know_ \- and his revenge would be sharp, sharper than his already thorny words. Baekhyun’s defeats hurt his enemies as much as they hurt him.

Chanyeol doesn’t feel pity. He feels anger, a tiny bit of hatred, like a pin stinging his chest sometimes, and an overwhelming, boisterous fascination. He feels the same kind of destructive desire children feel in china shops, inability to handle crystals paired with careless bravery and the unstoppable need to touch shiny, pretty, fragile things. And Baekhyun is all of that. Shiny, pretty, and incredibly fragile. Quite dangerous. If he breaks, shards are bound to pierce skin and flesh until they reach Chanyeol’s heart. If he breaks, maybe he will become even prettier. (Or maybe he’s so pretty because he’s already broken.)

Chanyeol tries to remember this is still a game. Baekhyun is angry, lonely and bored. Picking at Chanyeol’s weaknesses, pulling the strings to make him dance and pushing him until he snaps are his only sources of amusement. He’s a little shit and he likes being an ass on purpose. He likes bringing Chanyeol to the breaking point, when the only thing left to do is to snap and leave. The recoil hits Baekhyun too, because Chanyeol always comes back, but, until he does, Baekhyun is the one who’s left alone. In this game, winning means losing but Baekhyun doesn’t mind the final outcome, he only cares about playing the game. Chanyeol, on the other hand, only plays to win.

“So rude, Park Chanyeol. You can watch your mouth or leave.”

Chanyeol needs the money. Only that. And as long as he gets the final prize, he doesn’t mind playing by Baekhyun’s rules.

“I apologize.”

“That’s better. Keep reading.”

  
**ii. ELDRITCH**  
(n) eerie, uncomfortably weird

Chanyeol is not supposed to ask questions. Not to Mrs. Kim, not to the rest of the staff, not to Baekhyun - especially not to Baekhyun - and not even to himself. He’s not paid to _question_ things. He’s paid to visit, three to four times every week, double fee during the weekends. Chanyeol’s job is, essentially, to keep Baekhyun company. He stays with him for a few hours, reads him books, sometimes helps him with dinner or accompanies him during his sporadic, short walks in the garden. They’re supposed to talk, have conversation, but Mrs. Kim doesn’t like it when they talk too much.

“Mrs. Kim is worried you’ll put strange ideas in her son’s head,” explained Sunyoung, one of the youngest maids, at the end of Chanyeol’s trial month. “If you want to keep the job, you should do exactly as she says.”

Chanyeol wanted to keep the job, so he stopped asking questions. That doesn’t mean he stopped wondering why a boy like Baekhyun would be home schooled when his family has enough means to send him to the best college in the country. Why they never signed him up for mobility classes, why he knows how to read braille but not how to make a phone call. Why he’s not allowed to watch television, why he doesn’t have any friends or why he never goes out.

“Don’t you have a phone?” he asked Baekhyun, once, back when they could still have been friends.

“A phone? Does it look like I can use a phone?”

“No, I mean... There are special phones for... people like you.”

That was the first time he saw something fleeting, confusion, fury and a dash of betrayal, clashing violently on Baekhyun’s face. He wondered, briefly, if Baekhyun knew there were phones for people like him. Or schools for people like him. Or opportunities for people like him. It didn’t sound like something anyone would ever tell him, so Chanyeol tried.

The following day, a maid came by and told him Mrs. Kim wasn’t happy with what he had told her son. That he was forgiven because it was only the first time, but he was forbidden from doing it again.

As today, Chanyeol doesn’t understand why a mother would keep her son trapped in an old house like this, with no television, no internet, no friends. He can’t ask - _no questions Chanyeol, think about the money_ \- and he doesn’t really care for Baekhyun enough to ignore orders and risk to be dismissed just for his sake.

Sometimes, though, sometimes he’s in a good mood and Baekhyun is in a good mood and they talk. For real. Chanyeol talks about his university, his roommates, his friends sometimes. Baekhyun is curious, but he doesn’t like when Chanyeol talks about his life outside. He’s either too jealous or too bitter, and they end up fighting afterwards, but Chanyeol feels a little better at the end of their altercations. As if, in unveiling that world Baekhyun will never be able to see, he’s doing a good deed.

“Are you telling me you’ve never eaten _tteokbokki_?”

Baekhyun clicks his tongue and pretends to act all high and mighty to cover the fact that he has no idea what ‘ _tteokbokki_ ’ is.

“It sounds like food for peasants.”

“It is food for peasants, but it’s good.”

“I highly doubt it.”

“I’m not forcing you to eat it.”

It’s not like Mrs. Kim would ever allow takeaway food in her house.

Chanyeol jokes about it with Sunyoung on the subway.

“What is that woman’s problem anyway?” Sunyoung goes tense next to him for a moment. They’re alone in the car, surrounded by the whistle of wind inside the tunnels. Six stops left before they change to a local train to reach Mrs. Kim’s estate in the open countryside.

“You know, we’re not supposed to ask questions.”

“There’s no one here, are you really saying you don’t talk about it with the other girls? I know the maids like to gossip and it doesn’t take a genius to notice our employer is crazy.”

She shushes him, eyes going wide before she looks around warily, but they’re really alone. She still leans towards Chanyeol, whispering in a confidential tone, as if she’s afraid someone could hear even in the empty car.

“They say she’s sick. Paranoid. Sometimes she sees things that are not there. She... started having episodes after the President left her, but things really worsened after young Master Baekbom too left the house.” She sighs, lost in memories. Baekhyun’s brother is a ghost in the mansion, his absence heavier than his presence was. Chanyeol has never met him but he already doesn’t like him. 

“Did you know him?”

“Yes, I arrived here a few months before he left and I got to meet him. He was a smart boy and a good brother. He asked me to take care of Baekhyunnie for him. When he was here, he always insisted to take his brother out and teach him things, but since he left Mrs. Kim is so obsessed about everyone leaving her alone that she doesn’t even let Baekhyun go out on his own. She’s ruining him.”

Chanyeol would say Baekhyun is ruining himself. He doesn’t have to stay there and listen to his mother, after all.

“He’s twenty-one. He could leave.”

“How? He’s blind. Where would he go? Be realistic. He has no friends.”

“What about his father?”

“It’s... complicated. He’s a politician.” Chanyeol nods. He didn’t really connect the dots when he started to work for Mrs. Kim, but he knows her ex husband. He works with Chanyeol’s father. “I know he is,” he says. “A very powerful one. He has the means to help his son, so why…”

“Mrs. Kim’s family allegedly collaborated with Japanese before the war. I mean, no one ever dared to accuse them of anything, but if something like that was out he would be the former husband of a _chinilpa_ and his political career would be over. That’s why he can’t go against Mrs. Kim.” Sunyoung takes a sip of her grapefruit juice and looks at Chanyeol with big eyes. “You shouldn’t think too much about our Baekhyunnie. You’ll only get hurt.”

“I don’t and I won’t, don’t worry.”

The entire car rattles and howls as it comes to a stop. A pleasant voice announces the end of the line. Sunyoung adjusts her hat. She looks brighter in her own clothes. The grey uniform really mortifies her. It’s old and dusty like the house she works in.

Mrs. Kim spent most of her youth in Europe. That, at least, explains her taste in decor, but there’s something oppressive about that house, something eerie. It’s too dark, too heavy, too foreign. It feels like a prison.

“Why do you work there, Sunyoungie?” he asks, as they emerge from the underpass. Grass and field flowers welcome them. They’ve grown between the rails, on the platform, in the fields all around them. Sunyoung stretches like a cat in the sun.

“Same reason as you, I think. I needed the money. My family is not very well-off and university was too expensive, even with the scholarship. I thought I would do just a semester or two, because the pay was good enough to allow me to stop working until I graduated, but then I realized... Mrs. Kim was paying me more than I would earn if I were a lawyer.”

“Is it worth it?”

Sunyoung doesn’t answer. The train arrives. They talk about Sunyoung’s sister afterwards, and the daughter she’s just given birth to. Sunyoung thanks Chanyeol for accompanying her to Seoul.

“Thank you, _oppa_. The capital is too scary for a poor countryside girl like me. I would’ve been lost without you.”

“Whenever you want.”

They part ways at the main gate.

When he opens the door to Baekhyun’s room, he’s greeted by a cold, thin silence. Baekhyun looks positively murderous.

“You’re late,” he says. It’s dark and the armchair is too big for him. It swallows him whole and Chanyeol can only hear his voice. “What were you doing?”

Chanyeol doesn’t say he was with Sunyoung. He probably doesn’t need to. Some other maid must have told him. They all like to gossip too much. “I’m, like, two minutes late,” he murmurs.

“Still late.”

There’s a bottle of wine in his hands. Baekhyun looks like someone who only drinks expensive wine from crystal flutes, but with no one pouring for him he has to settle for drinking from the bottle. He takes a long sip, wiping his mouth clean with his fingers afterwards.

So, angry and maybe a little tipsy. The perfect combination. Chanyeol knows when he’s made a false move. For all his power plays Baekhyun is actually quite easy to read. Chanyeol can’t fool himself into believing Baekhyun really cares about him, but he knows how much Baekhyun can be possessive, in a selfish, childish way.

“I am sorry, Baekhyun...ssi.”

He holds his breath, wondering if he’s said too much. Baekhyun always demands a certain level of polite coldness from him, but honorifics, on odd days, irks him to no ends. Baekhyun’s eyebrow quirks up. It’s one of those days.

“I am sure it must be immensely satisfying to laugh at my back with one of the maids, Park Chanyeol. But it’s not what you’re paid for.”

Chanyeol coughs, trapped between another round of apologies and an explanation. He should apologize and end it there. If he tries to explain, he’ll have to spend even more time talking about it and that will make Baekhyun angrier and moodier and that’s not what Chanyeol wants.

“I wasn’t laughing at your back with one of the maids. We happened to take the same train.”

“Well, she _happened_ to take a spare morning just to visit you in Seoul.”

“She was visiting her sister in the hospital, can’t you show a little humanity for once in your life?”

Baekhyun throws the glass against the wall with a frustrated scream. He stays there, gasping, terribly angry, _blind_. His chest heaves up and down and he’s at the same time pretty and ugly, sharp like a knife and cut open. Even with all the people fussing around him, Baekhyun is always alone. And he’s always angry.

“Clean everything up and send me Sunyoung.”

“Is that really necessary?” he asks. _That girl likes you! Why do you do this to the people who are close to you? Why do you do this to yourself?_

“Go!”

Chanyeol doesn’t give a fuck about Baekhyun and his hurt feelings. But he knows Sunyoung cares. He knows Sunyoung secretly pities him, but she also wishes something better for him. The problem is, Baekhyun can smell pity coming in waves from the people around him. He was raised in pity. There’s nothing more offensive in the world for him.

Chanyeol calls Sunyoung and he can see her pale. She doesn’t say anything. She knows she’ll cry. Chanyeol doesn’t say anything either. Everything he says will only worsen Baekhyun’s already terrible mood. He feels a little sorry for her, but not enough to lose his job in a vain attempt at defending one of the maids from Baekhyun’s whimsical attitude.

When the door closes behind him, Chanyeol rests his head against it and takes a deep breath. He can still hear Sunyoung’s first muffled words. He walks away when they become sobs. He feels sick. The air is suffocating, the darkness solid behind his eyelids. It’s the house, it must be the house. Maybe it’s cursed. A house like a doomed castle that turns everyone inside in monsters or ghosts. What will Chanyeol be?

_I only need the money, I can do this._

  
**iii. TRUCULENT**  
(adj) overly aggressive, eager to fight

Sometimes Chanyeol thinks about pushing Baekhyun to his knees and fucking his pink, pouty, dirty mouth until he’s choking on cock. Sometimes he thinks about prying all the layers from Baekhyun, tearing apart his coldness like silk, unfastening his poisonous words like the buttons of his shirt and peeling away his secrets and underwear in one go. He wants to see what lies underneath, he wants to bite and mouth at the tender white skin and at Baekhyun’s soul at the same time.

He thinks Baekhyun knows, sometimes. When he chews on his lips until they’re full and red, when he lies on the sofa with his shirt only half-buttoned and his legs obscenely spread, when Chanyeol hesitates, an infinitesimal moment, too lost in Baekhyun’s perfect face, and Baekhyun cocks his head and smirks _like he knows_ , as if to taunt Chanyeol. 

Chanyeol wonders if he really knows, but how can he? He can’t see Chanyeol nor himself, so how does he know exactly what face to make, what position to assume to bring Chanyeol to the brim of madness with deadly precision? For a blind boy, he is either incredibly perceptive or incredibly naive. Or maybe he’s just innocent, unaware of what he’s doing to Chanyeol’s self-control.

Chanyeol is only the last and the least important of the people Baekhyun’s mother pays to take care of her child. Makeup artists, hairdressers, stylists and even a personal trainer for blind people. They wash him, they dress him, they turn him back and forth and they make him pretty, just like a doll. Just like a doll, he lets them do whatever they want. 

He only perks up, dark, hollow eyes suddenly curious, when he recognizes Chanyeol’s steps. To Chanyeol, and only to him, Baekhyun talks. To Chanyeol, and only to him, Baekhyun is human. A terrible human, maybe. He is bitchy. He is rude and obnoxious and impossibly cruel, like only children can be. But only to Chanyeol.

“When did it start?”

“When I was born, apparently. It _is_ a degenerative disease.”

“Yes, but when did it start to...” He hesitates, hopes he didn’t say a word too much. Baekhyun hesitates too, maybe to enjoy Chanyeol’s uneasiness.

“I was fourteen. My parents were divorcing. Mother used my condition to get custody and father let her because a blind son was useless for his career. And here I am.”

He cleans an invisible speck of dust from his arm and takes the fork. Chanyeol has already cut the steak for him. In the two years he’s worked for Baekhyun he’s never seen the boy eat food that wasn’t made by his mother’s personal chef. No _ramyun_ or _kimchi jjigae_ or _bibimbap_. He doesn’t think Baekhyun can use chopsticks but he’s glad he’s not the one who has to teach him. Having him eat with fork and spoon is already difficult.

After three failed attempts, he leads Baekhyun’s hand holding the fork towards the pieces of meat and back to his mouth, hovering around to see whether Baekhyun still needs help.

“You can sit down. I can eat on my own.”

“Yes.”

“You’re still standing, Park Chanyeol. I can hear you breathing on my neck.”

“Your mother said to make sure-”

“Are you on her side or mine?”

Hers, obviously. But Chanyeol still takes three steps back and sits down, watching Baekhyun relax when he hears the sound of him flopping on the pouf.

“Do you want me to read you something else, Baekhyun-ssi?” It’s so strange to use honorifics to someone of his same age. Strange for him, stranger for Baekhyun probably. But Baekhyun likes strange and finds solace in awkwardness and Chanyeol is paid to indulge him. “Romeo and Juliet maybe, it’s been a while since the last time...”

Baekhyun shakes his head and angles his body towards the sound of Chanyeol’s voice.

“My mother has been talking,” he says. “About getting me a girl.”

His tone is purposefully neutral, as if he’s talking about a pony or a new car.

“A girl, sir?”

“A wife. She wants me to give her grandchildren and stuff. I think the novelty of having a blind son is wearing off and she wants someone else to control. But it’s too soon for a wife and so I should start with a girlfriend maybe.”

Chanyeol doesn’t answer and Baekhyun frowns and Chanyeol knows - _he knows_ \- Baekhyun would give anything to be able to see his reaction. Chanyeol is glad Baekhyun can’t see his reaction, because he doesn’t think he’d be able to hide the ugly shadow darkening his face. He imagines Baekhyun’s white, pale arms wrapped around someone else, his head buried among plush thighs, his lips, no more pink but red and bitten and parted in a moan. He wonders if Baekhyun would feel the orgasm wash over him in a different way, every other sense heightened because he can’t see. It’s an exciting, wild thought.

It’s fucked up, it’s so fucked up. Baekhyun smirks, as if he knows, as if the truth is crystal clear in the tense silence between them.

“Wouldn’t that make you happy, Chanyeol? You wouldn’t be so alone in this big house, dealing with a cruel jerk like me.”

Chanyeol doesn’t force a smile on his lips. It comes naturally. But it’s bitter. “Wouldn’t it make you happier, Baekhyun-ssi? You would have someone else paid to endure your presence, after all.” Baekhyun’s smile too comes naturally and is bitter. “Doesn’t really make a difference to me if I have one whore or two. Pour me some wine, Chanyeol, and shut up.”

Chanyeol’s hold on the bottle wavers and tightens so much he almost breaks it. Baekhyun reclines his head on the pillow and looks every inch the smug motherfucker he is. He can’t see beyond his nose - hell, he can’t even see his nose - but he can still manage to look like he could break Chanyeol in half with nothing but a smile and a carefully chosen word.

 _Whore._ He called Chanyeol a whore. Chanyeol closes his eyes and dreams of taking Baekhyun apart with his fists, of ruining him for everyone else, of calling him a whore and watch him begging for it. It would be nice to show this pathetic, spoiled kid that money can’t buy friends, nor happiness. 

But that would be too easy. Breaking Baekhyun would be easy. He’s so thin, so skinny, all skin and bones and malice. Breaking Baekhyun would be useless because Baekhyun breaks himself and puts himself back every day, more fragile and more unbreakable than before. Chanyeol wants to melt Baekhyun instead, to corrupt him, to lose him until he can never find his way back. Chanyeol wants so many things. He wants himself to remember he’s only here for the money. He wants Baekhyun to shut up. Sometimes, in the privacy of his mind, he just wants Baekhyun.

  
**iv. QUERULOUS**  
(adj) complaining, whining

There’s something wrong in the way Baekhyun looks most of the time, in the orchestrated, tailored grace linen shirts fall on his shoulder and chest, in the perfect curl of his hair, in the bow of his lips, shining slightly with chapstick and parted in a silent sigh.

There’s something wrong, something dehumanizing, in the way Baekhyun’s mother has him dolled up, wearing designer clothes, hair styled and a firm, toxic smile, like a model in a grunge photoshoot. Vanity is for people who can look at themselves in a mirror the way Baekhyun never will. Vanity is useless for a blind boy. 

Vanity is for his mother, and what Baekhyun has left is the anger.

“Don’t pity me,” he screams, he shrieks, he thrashes, during his worse fits. “Don’t you dare pity me, Park Chanyeol!”

Chanyeol stays with him - he’s the only one who’s allowed - until Baekhyun has run out of venom, until Baekhyun starts running in circles to purposefully lose his sense of direction in the room he’s inhabited for years. No matter how well he knows it, all it takes is two spins and suddenly he doesn’t know where he is and he can run, run and hope to crash against one of the walls and break his neck, end it there and then. Chanyeol is always there to catch him.

Baekhyun doesn’t cry. He doesn’t say he wants to die. Baekhyun sees nothing and does nothing but everything is painfully obvious, in his slumped shoulders and his empty eyes.

Chanyeol stays.

“I don’t want your pity,” says Baekhyun in the end, his words hoarse and tired in the midday night of his room. “I might have lost my sight, but I have everything else. I can have everything I want.”

Chanyeol doesn’t pity Baekhyun. The maids pity Baekhyun, his father and brother pity Baekhyun, his mother too, when she remembers he’s her son and not only her prettiest doll. Baekhyun pities himself more than anyone else can. Chanyeol is not paid to tell Baekhyun the truth.

But.

“What do you want?”

It all comes to that. What does he want? 

Baekhyun doesn’t answer. He can have everything he wants but he doesn’t know what he wants? How foolish of him. 

They spend the rest of the afternoon listening to the sound of Baekhyun’s ragged breaths until he falls in a nervous, restless slumber. Chanyeol doesn’t wake him up when he leaves.

  
**v. RECREANT**  
(n) coward

Sometimes Baekhyun is in a good mood. It doesn’t happen very often, but it happens. Chanyeol savors those moments like candies in his mouth, feeling the sweetness spread on his tongue before he cracks them with his teeth, with words too loud, too heavy and too clumsy.

“Do you want me to tell you their colors?” he says, and Baekhyun freezes and his hold on the rose tightens to the point of crushing the flower.

“If you wish to do so,” he says, but Chanyeol already knows he’s said a word too much. He should’ve let Baekhyun enjoy the flowers in peace. They don’t go out often, but when they do Baekhyun is moody and easily irritable.

It’s easier to ignore his disability inside the house, in the dim half-light of Baekhyun’s room, cushioned by soft carpets and heavy curtains. It’s more difficult to ignore it when you can feel the sun on your skin and smell the fragrance of the roses all around you, hear the bees buzz from flower to flower unable to find the pollen among the endless petals. When you can’t help but wonder about the colors of the garden, about the lights, the shadows, the deepness of the horizon that no memory can capture.

And yet, Baekhyun loves the garden. Outside, when it’s bright enough, he sees. Not colors, but lights and shapes, out of focus, like ghosts hovering at the border of what he can and what he cannot see. It’s not much, but it’s something. Inside the mansion, in the dim, soft half-light, Baekhyun sees close to nothing, an endless night.

“So, are you telling me or not? What color is this one?”

Regretting his words is one thing but doing nothing would probably make Baekhyun even angrier, so Chanyeol kneels next to him, calculating how close can he scoot for Baekhyun to know where Chanyeol is without realizing Chanyeol is being considerate of his feelings. (There’s nothing more offensive than deliberate consideration and care, for Byun Baekhyun.)

He takes Baekhyun’s left hand and guides his fingers down, until they’re gracing the velvety petals of a red rose in full bloom.

“Red,” he says. “This one is red.”

“Red?” asks Baekhyun. He’s curious, and he’s angry that he’s curious, but he’s still more curious than angry and he leans his head on Chanyeol’s shoulder, blinks with his useless eyes. “What kind of red?” he asks.

 _The same red of your cheeks and ears, right now,_ wants to say Chanyeol but he can’t. He can’t. He still needs the money and he can’t do what he wants.

“I don’t know the names of the roses, nor all the names of the colors,” says Chanyeol, and Baekhyun’s face drops. It’s so easy to upset him. His jaw tightens and his mouth curl in a stilted, bitter way, the faint anticipation of a nasty word rippling the unnatural beauty of his features.

“It’s a deep color, and it’s intense like... like sex,” says Chanyeol, in a hurry, before the moment swims past them and Baekhyun’s rage flares up. “A cold red, very full, very dark, with darker hues. It feels velvety.”

“It _is_ velvety,” says Baekhyun, still touching it. At least he seems satisfied by Chanyeol’s answer. “You should learn the name of the roses, at least. They’re important.”

He’s quiet and young and soft against Chanyeol for a moment.

“I planted these roses myself, back when I could see. I wanted to make my own and become famous. This one...” A pause, and he touches the rose intently. “If I’m not mistaken, the name of this one was _sexy red_. It was one of my brother’s favorites.”

He almost laughs and Chanyeol feels weightless. He’s still in the china shop and he’s dancing. A wrong move and everything will shatter.

“What is your favorite then?”

“Me? I love queens. Queen of Sweden, Queen of Denmark, Queen Elizabeth. My favorite was the Queen Alexandra, but you won’t find it in this garden. There used to be one, a long time ago, but not anymore.”

“I’m afraid I’ve never seen one in my life.”

He freezes, hoping Baekhyun didn’t notice his slip. It is not wise to talk about what one has seen, is seeing or will ever see in front of Baekhyun, who used to see but can’t see now and will never see again. Baekhyun doesn’t notice.

“It’s a beautiful flower, but it’s a lot like me.”

He gets up on his own with a sigh and waits for Chanyeol to offer him his arm, so they can start walking back to the house again.

“The original rose only had five petals, did you know? It was a tiny, unremarkable flower, white or pink. You wouldn’t spare it a second glance if you were to see it. The rose as we know it today is something that was created by us and for us, and it wouldn’t exist without us.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean someone found a mutation of the original dog-rose, in which some of the stamens had turned into petals, and they discovered that by forcing that rose to reproduce with a similar one they could create hybrids. So they experimented, again and again, mixing the hybrids to create the most beautiful, the most spectacular roses. That’s how the roses we know today were born. Artificial selection.”

He stops, to regain his breath. Sometimes Chanyeol forgets that, despite the long training session his mother forces him to take, Baekhyun almost never goes out. The sun is merciless on his head, the smells clog his nose and every sound pounds in his head. He leans against Chanyeol, forcing his little weight on him. He’s so light, just like a flower.

“But beauty has a price. To make those roses beautiful, to create a crown of endless petals, soft and pretty and colorful, they had to sacrifice something else. The Queen Alexandra, for all its pretty petals, for all its lush elegance, for all its delicate smells, doesn’t have any stamens left. It’s sterile. Just like me.”

Chanyeol knows his limits. He knows when he should stop. He needs the job and he needs the money and he really needs to stop.

“You’re only sterile because you want to be, Baekhyun. You’re so intent on hating everything and everyone that...”

“I didn’t really ask for your opinion.”

“Well, I-”

“You can leave, Chanyeol. It’s late and I’m tired. Sunyoung will walk me to my room.”

Chanyeol used to know when to pick his battles. He used to know, but he’s spent the last two years baby-sitting Baekhyun and Baekhyun never picks his battles. Baekhyun creates them and fights them all until the last drop of blood has been shed. He fights like he has nothing to lose until he’s lost everything - until there’s really nothing left to lose. Then, he fights some more. Baekhyun doesn’t know when to start and when to stop.

“You can’t keep living like this, Baekhyun.” He didn’t mean to make it sound so… patronizing, ut it is. It is, and Baekhyun steps back as if bitten by a snake.

“You are not allowed to tell me what I can or I cannot do, Park Chanyeol.”

“Isn’t that why you keep me around? Isn’t that why your mother is paying me? To be your friend?”

Baekhyun laughs and it’s the wrong kind of laugh. Too many teeth, ready to pull at Chanyeol’s skin.

“Friend? My mother is paying you to be my plaything. You are been paid, Park Chanyeol, to do everything I ask, no matter how humiliating and demeaning it is, because you don’t have a choice. Because you need the money. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re a friend to me. You’re just an emotional outlet for a blind, useless child. And I’m just collateral damage to you.”

Chanyeol’s fists shake. Baekhyun wouldn’t see it coming. Baekhyun wouldn’t be able to do anything. His fists shake and his lips shake and there’s rain in his eyes even under the afternoon sun. He doesn’t know if it’s raining for him or for Baekhyun.

“About one thing you’re right, Chanyeol. Only one.” The way Baekhyun says his name is soft, like the kiss of a rose hiding his thorns. Cold, like porcelain dolls dressed in silk and lace. “I can’t keep living like this. I can’t do this anymore. By the way, you’re fired.”

  
**vi. SUSURRUS**  
(n) whispering, rustling

Chanyeol watches the pictures hanging from the walls in the hallways one last time before he leaves. Photographs of Mrs. Kim and CEO Byun before the divorce, the prettiest couple, smiling so hard their faces looked on the verge of breaking. Photographs of young Master Baekbom and of Baekhyunnie, like the older maids still call him. (The younger maids call him _her son_ and nothing else.)

“He wasn’t always like this,” said Mrs. Lee, one of the oldest staff members to Chanyeol in hushed whispers. “He used to be such a bright kid, so full of life, so kind. The disease hit him so hard, but it was his mother who ruined him.”

Chanyeol has seen the photos, a tanned boy with a smile so big his entire face disappeared into it, eyes, nose, lips all gone, until only the joy remained. He’s prettier now, but he looked better before. Chanyeol could stay for him, for that kid who didn’t deserve to lose the light so soon. Chanyeol leaves because he’s not sure something of that kid remained. (He leaves because he’s already in too deep and Baekhyun is dangerous.)

He doesn’t go back. He knows Baekhyun is hurting. He knows Baekhyun is lonely. He can feel it resonate in his body and settle down in his lungs. He ignores it.

He pities Baekhyun. It’s his spiteful revenge, his petty payback. Baekhyun hates his own weaknesses, he hates showing them and he hates even more when people are aware of them.

Chanyeol thinks about it at night, revels in the way Baekhyun must be feeling and hopes Baekhyun feels even worse knowing Chanyeol knows how little and pathetic and alone he is, how human. How powerless.

He finds other jobs. Not one, not two, but three. The pay sucks but he needs to stay away from Baekhyun more than he needs the money. He moves in a cheaper area and shares a room with a bubbly engineering major. He starts working different shifts and puts university on hiatus for this semester, at least until he’s saved enough money. Until he has more leverage. He considers calling his family and asking for their help, but he’s too proud. He left home because he knew he could make it on his own and he won’t crawl back like a whiney child. Not to a father who called him a shame and a disappointment for the wrong reasons. He calls his sister at night and ignores her when she tells him to come home or to go back to Mrs. Kim’s house. He grits his teeth and doubles his efforts.

At night, when Baekhyun’s ghost whispers mean things in his ear, he thinks about kissing him senseless and fucking his pretty pink mouth to get him to shut up. He doesn’t feel guilty when he wakes up, but he misses Baekhyun deeply and acutely.

Three months later, Chanyeol comes back.

  
**vii. VITUPERATIVE**  
(adj) bitter

Baekhyun’s mother is pretty, just like her dolls, just like _him_. There’s a spark of madness in her eyes - the first symptoms of schizophrenia, according to the rumors - and the arrogant assuredness people will always do what she wants because she has enough money to buy everyone.

She usually doesn’t scold Chanyeol, she simply orders the maids to do it, but today... Today she walks up to him and the mirrors seem to shake with the echo of a powerful slap.

“Where have you been? Where in the world have you been? You think you can play with my son’s life? With my son’s feelings?” Even on her heels, she doesn’t reach Chanyeol’s height. The slap wasn’t strong, but she was wearing golden rings on her fingers, thick shiny bands dotted with diamonds. Their imprint burns on Chanyeol’s cheek. “I should have you whipped, boy. I should have...”

“I’m here to see Baekhyun,” says Chanyeol, politely but also firmly. She’s not used to be interrupted, not by hungry, skinny Law majors, and she doesn’t know how to deal with Chanyeol’s impudence. 

One of the maids comes forward with a bow, grabs Chanyeol by the arm and quickly drags him away.

“Don’t you do that ever again,” she warns. “She could really have you whipped.”

“Whipped, really? What is this, Joseon? The Middle Age? I don’t work for her anymore, she can’t touch me,” he says, shrugging.

Sunyoung stops, looks at him. “You don’t work for her? Then what are you doing here?”

Chanyeol pries her hand open, away from his sleeve.

“Like I said, I’m here to see Baekhyun.”

  
**viii. KNAVERY**  
(n) a roguish or mischievous act

Baekhyun is waiting for him. Of course Baekhyun is waiting for him. Writhing with a smoldering, whimpering rage, shaking like a leaf in front of the fire, so lost, so pretty, so blind.

He recognizes Chanyeol without seeing him and he stills, waiting for an apology Chanyeol has no intention to surrender.

“Don’t you have anything to say?” he asks, and it’s impatient, too impatient. In the past, when Chanyeol did something like this, Baekhyun bid his time and waited for him to fall knees down on the ground. He waited for Chanyeol to beg. But in the past Chanyeol always came back after one or two weeks. This time Chanyeol waited three months to come back, and apparently Baekhyun, despite all his pretenses and lies and facades, can’t afford the luxury to wait for Chanyeol to apologize first.

“I have many things to say,” replies Chanyeol, and he can see the way Baekhyun angles his body towards him, like a boy following a kite, ready to snatch it back if the wind threatens to take it away. But Chanyeol is not a kite and he’s not someone who can be swayed by the wind. “But I’m not going to apologize.”

His words are met with glacial silence and Chanyeol can feel proud. He robbed Baekhyun of all his words, this time.

“You see, Baekhyun-”

“We might have a problem then. You won’t get this job back unless you apologize.”

“I’m not here to get this job back.”

More silence. He can feel the desperation coming from Baekhyun in waves. The panic. Baekhyun squints, trying to see Chanyeol with his useless eyes. He wants to look at his face, wants to read the truth in there.

“What about the money?” he asks. Only an attentive eye could spot the slight quiver of his lips.

“I found another job. Doesn’t pay like your mother does, but it pays the bills and that’s enough for me,” he answers.

“I can pay you more than them. Double the amount, thrice.” Misery seeps through his voice, sheer and strident.

“I don’t want your money, Baekhyun. I don’t need it and I don’t want it.”

Chanyeol doesn’t want the money. He wants Baekhyun, but when he looks at him, he sees a lost child. He sees a young boy, all dolled up and wearing fancy clothes, lying on the luscious sofa like a discarded toy, like a collection doll, like a flower under a glass bell. Baekhyun is mean, Baekhyun is cruel, Baekhyun is utterly and devastatingly alone. Baekhyun is going to break like crystal in Chanyeol’s hands if he’s not careful enough and it will be a bloody mess, all the shards going to his hands and to his chest, to his heart. Baekhyun is broken. And yet Chanyeol wants him, but not enough to stay.

“Then what are you doing here? Did you come to gloat? For revenge? To humiliate me? To make me feel like nothing?” His voice gets thinner and thinner with every word, until it breaks. “You’re not the first one, Park Chanyeol, and you won’t be the last. The entire world is set on making me feel like nothing, you aren’t important, you aren’t-”

He takes Baekhyun’s face in his hands and Baekhyun tries to jerk away but Chanyeol’s hold is steady, strong. He’s been Baekhyun’s eyes for more than two years and it’s the first time he touches his face. It’s soft and dusty with powder. He rubs the makeup away. Baekhyun hisses.

“If you don’t let me go immediately I’ll call the maid, I will.”

“If you call her I’ll go away.”

“Won’t you do it anyway?” hisses Baekhyun.

Yes, Chanyeol will. He only came to say goodbye and to steal something. Baekhyun is close, too close. There’s a little mole over his lips and a little fair scar on his chin. Chanyeol could touch it, if he wanted.

He leans down, slowly, to make sure Baekhyun can feel his breath on his lips. He stops holding him still, gives Baekhyun the opportunity to turn his head on the other side if he doesn’t want this. He can stop it, but he won’t.

Baekhyun is the one who closes the distance between them. It lasts only for a second, a moment of deafening silence and breath caught between moist, chapped lips. Baekhyun goes still when their lips touch, only to shy away immediately, unsure. He blinks, long lashes fluttering close and open again.

Chanyeol steals his first kiss - it’s what he came here for, after all, what he dreamed of for two long years - and then he chases him again, steals his second, his third, his fourth. He tries to convince himself that it’s not really stealing, not when Baekhyun seems so eager, so soft and pliant under him, but he knows better. He came here as a thief. He’s going to walk through that door and never come back and he’ll take these kisses with him whether Baekhyun wants it or not.

He angles his head, tilts Baekhyun’s so that their mouths fit better, so he can lick at the seam of Baekhyun’s lips, and the boy under him makes a noise that starts from his throat and ends on the tip of his tongue, and his lips part in time for Chanyeol to taste it. His lashes are still fluttering, like the wings of a mockingbird, and his chest is heaving and the hand clamped on Chanyeol’s wrist is sweaty and hot. Right here, right now, Baekhyun is not a doll, he’s not a flower or a crystal trinket, Baekhyun is a boy who wants to kiss Chanyeol. A boy whom Chanyeol wants to kiss.

Chanyeol smiles into the kiss, but it’s a small victory. Baekhyun can feel it, the way Chanyeol’s lips curl against his own. He bites him, hard enough to draw blood.

“You miserable bastard...”

It’s the first time he hears Baekhyun curse and he takes a moment, only one, to enjoy the oxymoron of such a crude word leaving Baekhyun’s pretty lips and wonder who he learnt it from, who managed to corrupt Mrs. Kim’s perfect little son under her pretty nose. _Oh,_ , he thinks, _it must have been me._

“Is this a game for you, is this-”

Chanyeol shuts him up with a last kiss, firmer and longer than the previous ones. It tastes a little like blood, but Chanyeol has just properly kissed Baekhyun like he dreamed to do since the first time he saw him. He will not complain.

When they part, they’re both breathless. Baekhyun’s eyes are wet with tears he won’t allow himself to shed.

“Is this a farewell?” he asks, and he looks so sad. So broken.

Chanyeol doesn’t need to answer that question.

“You were supposed to be only a job, Baekhyun,” he says instead. “I would’ve stayed, had you been only a job.” He touches Baekhyun’s upper lip, feels it shake. “But the more I care about you, the more you can hurt me. And you only know how to hurt people.”

“Everyone leaves me.”

“Everyone lives, Baekhyun. You should try.” Because Baekhyun is alive, but he doesn’t know how to live. He doesn’t know what he wants. He only knows the four walls of his room, the cold, shrill voice of his only parent left, the touch of the housemaids. Now he also knows the taste of Chanyeol’s lips. He will remember it forever.

“Yes, why don’t I try living for once? Why don’t I try going out or attending school or dancing or any of the things other people can do and I can’t? Why don’t I try seeing again? Why don’t I?” Chanyeol listens but there’s nothing he can say. He can’t be Baekhyun’s lifeline through this storm, he just can’t.

“Leave, just leave! I don’t want to see-” He stops, bites his own lips. He can probably taste Chanyeol and himself and the kisses. He doesn’t cry. “Just leave, Park Chanyeol.”

He hears the first sob after the click of the door. He hears it through the walls, through the main gate, through his own ribcage. He hears it in the subway on his way home, in the busy, loud streets of his neighborhood, in his room when he goes to sleep.

_Get over it, Chanyeol. You’ll never see him again._

His lips still tingle with the taste of the kisses he’s stolen. Baekhyun’s first, second and third and all the ones that followed.

_It’s over._

  
**ix. BRAVADO**  
(n) a bold manner or a show of boldness intended to impress or intimidate

The doorbell rings thrice. Chanyeol ignores it the first time, groans the second and curses the third. The doorbell just rings again, long, shrill and damn, so annoying, and Chanyeol gets up and stares at the time, five in the afternoon, as he gets up slowly and groggily makes his way towards the entrance. It rings again while Chanyeol walks from his bed to the door. The last time, it’s with an urgency that borders on desperation.

From the peephole, he recognizes a familiar face he hasn’t seen in almost a month. He unlocks the door.

“Sunyoungie, why are you here?”

She looks different in her everyday clothes. She looks... more vivid. Not for the first time, Chanyeol wonders whether the Kim mansion is haunted, what’s the spell that makes everyone who steps inside look too worn and threadbare, on the verge of fading away. But Sunyoung right now is vibrant and bright, bristling with frenzy. She sends him an apologetic, desperate look.

“Please _oppa_ , you have to forgive me, you really have to. I didn’t want to come here but he was throwing a tantrum and he refused to eat and he wanted to kill himself and...”

 _He_. Baekhyun.

“Ok, I understand. Let me grab my jacket, I’ll come back with you.”

For all his good intentions about forgetting and moving on, Chanyeol doesn’t feel an ounce of conflict within himself. He hears Baekhyun’s name and he’s ready to go. Maybe he had been waiting for a reason to come back all this time.

Sunyoung stills him with a hand on his arm, not different from the many times she has steered him towards Baekhyun’s bedroom.

“He’s not at home. He’s... He’s here. I brought him here.”

“You did what?”

He runs outside the apartment and, without a doubt, Byun Baekhyun is there, sitting on the dirty emergency staircase, hugging his knees and looking really close to having a panic attack. He jumps, startled, when Chanyeol touches him, a simple touch on his shoulder.

“It’s me, ok? It’s me.”

He nods and follows Chanyeol’s touch, lets himself be dragged up on his feet and inside the apartment, in a daze. They’re both in a daze. Chanyeol gestures for Sunyoung to come inside too.

“I can’t,” she says. “I have to be back at the mansion before someone realizes he’s gone or Mrs. Kim will have me fired.”

“Wait, what are you talking about?”

He tries to stop her, but she’s already disappearing behind the corner, a last, “I’m sorry, Chanyeol!” ringing in the air behind her.

Chanyeol would chase her, force her to tell him what is happening - he sure has no idea - but there’s Baekhyun, standing awkwardly inside his apartment, blind and lost. He hasn’t taken a single step without Chanyeol there to steer him in the right direction. He doesn’t know where he is.

For the first time in a long time, Baekhyun doesn’t know where he is. He has memorized every corner, every wall, every window, everything inside his room to be able to move in complete darkness. Now, in completely uncharted territory, he doesn’t dare to take a step. 

Now that Chanyeol looks at him he seems gaunt. Pale. There are dark circles under his eyes. He listen closely and waits, because Chanyeol is silent and still and Baekhyun has no clue where Chanyeol is, where he himself is, so he waits until Chanyeol clears his throat and says “Hi.”

“Hi,” he says back. A long pause. He winces, clearly tired of waiting for Chanyeol to process what is happening. In the end, he sits on the ground and crosses his legs, his tailored expensive clothes on the dusty floor Chanyeol and his roommates haven’t swept in like... three weeks.

“I’m going to help you up,” Chanyeol says, “and walk you to the couch. Is that alright with you?”

“Your floor is dirty.”

“I am aware.”

Baekhyun doesn’t flinch at the touch. He hated when he had to ask for Chanyeol’s help to walk around and that’s why he memorized the measures of his own room, counting the steps back and forth to know where to stop and where to turn and where to find his stuff. Now, he lets Chanyeol gently guide him towards the couch and he flops on it awkwardly. He grits his teeth when his leg collides with the coffee table.

Chanyeol sits in front of him, careful to make some noise so Baekhyun can know where he is. He stares. At Baekhyun’s nervous hands, the way they pick on the fabric of his pants and drum on his knees. At the stark contrast between his elegant clothes and the cheap, if not hand-me-down furniture of his own flat. At his throat, the way he gulps down the courage to say something but in the end doesn’t. He stares at Baekhyun, who looks around without really seeing anything. He’s probably feeling dazed, assaulted by the smell of spices still lingering in the kitchen, the faint tang of tobacco clinging to the curtains and to the couch and the crisp fragrance of fabric softener.

“Your place smells funny,” he says, in a little voice. Chanyeol scoffs.

“It smells like peasants, you mean.”

“I didn’t say it, you did. I wanted to say dumpster.”

Always so charming, Byun Baekhyun.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, trying to keep his voice straight and failing. Baekhyun notices, and he falters a little. (It’s only been three weeks, Chanyeol can still read his face.) 

“You never came back.”

“You asked me to leave, Baekhyun, so what are you doing here?”

There’s silence as Baekhyun thinks about his answer. He crosses his arms and furrows his brow, looking for the right words in the darkness around him.

“I’m surprising you,” he says, clasping his hands together.

“You certainly are. Are you going to tell me you missed me or are we still going through the denial phase?”

Baekhyun is not wearing makeup and even his perfectly tailored clothes seem too big for him today. He looks too tiny for Chanyeol’s kitchen, for the messy counter buried under dirty cups of curry _ramyun_ and for the cigarette butts Jongdae leaves around when he binge smokes before an exam. He looks real, more human, so different from that ghost made of roses and crystal (of porcelain and pink lips and Persian carpets and velvet curtains cocooning the rooms and turning them into layers of darkness) that Chanyeol used to know.

He looks alive under the crude light of a single bulb lamp. He looks like the boy in the photographs hanging from the hallways in his mother’s family mansion. He still doesn’t answer, but Chanyeol can answer for him.

“I missed you a lot. See? It’s easy, you can say it too. I missed you.”

“You’re an asshole,” answers Baekhyun.

“Language,” he says, a light warning. “I’m not an asshole, I’m simply talking back. It’s far more entertaining like this, don’t you think?”

Baekhyun tilts his head. He still looks lost and out of place, but in a strangely domestic way. “I liked it better when you did everything I asked you to do.”

“I like it better when I do everything I want to do myself, thank you very much. For example, now I would very much like to kick you out of my house.” Baekhyun’s breath catches in his throat. “Why don’t you do it?” he asks, and he’s scared Chanyeol will do it, but he still manages to sound defiant, fearless.

Chanyeol sighs. He should really make Baekhyun leave.

“You’re the real asshole, Baekhyun. You’ve always been nothing but an asshole to me. And now you come here, invade my house and-”

“I ran away from home.”

“- like I owe you someth- What?”

“I ran away from home,” he repeats, slower. Firmer.

“You can’t run away from home, you can’t even walk away from your home on your legs.”

“But I’m here.”

He’s here. Sitting in Chanyeol’s living room like he doesn’t care that his mother will have Chanyeol arrested for kidnapping her blind, barely legal son. No one will believe Baekhyun got here on his own and Sunyoung won’t take responsibility for what she did. All the blame will fall on Chanyeol.

“Do you realize what it means for me to have you here?”

“I can’t go back. I... I don’t want to go back. My mother doesn’t want to let me out of the house. She doesn’t let my father or brother come to visit. You were my only... It doesn’t matter, I’m not going back.”

“Why are you so selfish?”

Baekhyun gets up, his face tense, his fists tense, his shoulders tense. His legs are shaking. He takes a tentative step and almost ends up tripping on the coffee table. He swallows a curse. “Show me to the door, please.”

“What?”

“This was a bad idea, of course. You won’t help me. You always despised me, didn’t you? You just kissed me because you could and because you knew I was pathetic enough to let you do it. Was it funny, taking your revenge like that? It doesn’t really matter, I had fun too. Sorry for bothering you today.”

And Chanyeol knows, because he has spent the last two years working for Baekhyun’s mother, being with Baekhyun, taking care of Baekhyun, letting Baekhyun toy with him and his patience however he liked – he knows Baekhyun is trying to manipulate him. He also knows how much Baekhyun likes playing the victim, how much he likes to be the tragic hero, the martyr everyone hates. It pulls at the strings of Chanyeol’s heart, but there’s a reason he left. He left because Baekhyun was hurting him and Chanyeol is not stupid enough to let a childish boy play with his heart just because he can. (Just because it’s the only thing he can play with.)

“You can’t go out on your own. You’re blind, Baekhyun.”

It’s the first time he says the word to Baekhyun’s face, and if they were still in that house, in that dark, suffocating doll house, Baekhyun would probably try to hit him. (And Chanyeol would be bound, by contract, to let him. To help him, even, because of course Baekhyun would miss.)

But here, in the sunlight, in the trivial, cheap domesticity of Chanyeol’s house - no special roses, no dolls, no crystal shards, no velvet curtains and fake smiles - Baekhyun only shrinks a little.

“I can’t stay here either,” he says, matter-of-factly.

“I’ll call...”

“Who? Who will you call, Chanyeol? I don’t know how to contact my father but I already know he can’t help me. He lost the custody and he won’t risk the wrath of mother’s lawyers, not this close to the election. My brother is in the States and he probably doesn’t even remember my face!” He laughs, empty and caustic and forced. And sad and sharp, like Baekhyun often is. “There’s no one else. Even if you were cruel enough to want me back in that horrible house, and you aren’t, I wouldn’t let you call my mother.”

Little impudent brat. Chanyeol should call her, just to spite Baekhyun.

“And how would you stop me?”

“If you call her, I’ll say you brought me here. Against my will.”

Chanyeol stops, Baekhyun’s mother’s number already on the screen of his phone. He doesn’t know if he really wanted to call her, but he wanted to make Baekhyun mad. He really did. He lets the phone drop, hands shaking.

He’s angry that Baekhyun won. In this house, in Chanyeol’s house, a hostile, unknown territory, and without any leverage, Baekhyun still managed to win. And in Baekhyun’s world, in his stupid, self-sabotaging life, winning means losing.

“Ok,” he says, gritting his teeth, pushing his nails so hard into his palms they almost draw blood. “Ok, come on.” He grabs Baekhyun’s elbow, roughly, pushing him towards the door. He opens it and throws him outside. “It was nice seeing you, Baekhyun. It’s a pity you can’t say the same.”

Baekhyun smirks. He’s won and he’s lost and he’s so sad but he still smirks, and Chanyeol feels like they’ve both lost.

“Goodbye, Chanyeol.”

Chanyeol slams the door in his face. 

That stupid kid, that stupid _stupid_ kid. Colors shimmer at the corner of his eyes, the acid, washed out red of a winter sunset drowned in fog. It will be dark soon and Baekhyun wasn’t even wearing a coat. He doesn’t have a cane, or a walking dog. He can’t use a phone, he probably doesn’t have money to pay for a taxi. And where would he go?

Chanyeol starts hyperventilating. He runs to the door, opens it, almost expecting to find Baekhyun still there, still waiting for him to think things through. He hopes Baekhyun had the common sense to stay there. But it’s Baekhyun, it’s fucking Baekhyun and Chanyeol can’t expect a boy who was raised inside a doll house, under a glass bell, to know what common sense is.

Baekhyun is not there. The elevator is not there either, and Chanyeol doesn’t wait for it. He runs downstairs, hoping to catch Baekhyun before some car runs over him in his stubborn, mad quest for... He doesn’t know what Baekhyun is looking for. He doesn’t know what Baekhyun wants.

The streets are loud, colorful, dirty. And packed. Too many people on either side and Chanyeol doesn’t see Baekhyun. Doesn’t know where he went.

“Excuse me?” he asks. “Have you seen a boy my age? He’s shorter than me, dark eyes. He’s wearing formal clothes and…”

The woman in front of him, a middle-aged lady accompanied by a little girl, maybe her nephew, shakes her head. The kid, four to six years old maybe and missing a tooth, grabs Chanyeol’s pants and smiles cutely, pointing to a little _tteokbokki_ stand on the left where Chanyeol often buys spicy rice cakes after his evening shift at the coffee shop.

The gasp of air Chanyeol takes is ice cold and full of relief. Baekhyun is there, giggling cutely at something the auntie selling street food is saying, and beaming like a child. She’s filled a paper cup with rice cakes and spicy sauce, and she carefully makes sure Baekhyun eats one, guiding his hand from the cup to his mouth.

“Is it good?” she says, and laughs when Baekhyun chokes on the spicy taste. “Maybe a little too much, for you? But, tell me,” she frowns, a little worried, a little motherly, “are you alone?”

“He’s with me.”

Baekhyun follows the sound of his voice, his smile faltering. The auntie, too, turns.

“Oh, Park Chanyeol, it’s you!” she cries, relieved. “He’s one of your friends, then? He’s so polite.”

Chanyeol puts an arm around Baekhyun’s shoulder, takes his wallet out with the other.

“How much is it?”

“Oh, don’t worry. It’s on the house. He never tried _tteokbokki_ , can you believe it?”

Sadly, Chanyeol can. He still leaves a couple of rumpled bills. “Can you give me another, auntie? Cheese _tteokbokki_ for me.”

“Here, dear. You shouldn’t leave your friend alone when he can’t see, and you,” she says, and Baekhyun bites his bottom lip, looking guilty and mortified, “you should be more careful next time.”

Chanyeol bows and apologizes for both of them, and when he’s done he pulls Baekhyun closer, holding him against his side, a bit afraid he’ll disappear again if he takes his eyes off him for a second.

They greet and leave, together, Chanyeol’s hands still clamped on Baekhyun’s shoulder.

“Where are you taking me?” asks Baekhyun, over the racket of a group of students waiting for the green light to cross the road. Baekhyun’s head perks up at their voices, their laughs, but his attention shifts immediately back on Chanyeol’s reply.

“Home.”

Baekhyun tenses against him.

“My home.”

“I thought you didn’t want me there.”

Chanyeol really has no answer for that.

“Let’s just go home, for now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Translations:  
> tteokbokki: rice and fish cakes in spicy sauce  
> ramyun: instand noodles  
> kimchi jjigae: kimchi soup  
> bibimbap: mixed rice  
> chinilpa: pro-Japanese collaborators


	2. What was life asking of me? How could I respond when I didn’t know the question?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where friendship is tried and failed.

  
_“What was life asking of me? How could I respond when I didn’t know the question?”_  
— Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

  
**x. IMBROGLIO**  
(n) a confused, embarrassing situation

It had been a rushed, foolish idea but Chanyeol was a young _chaebol_ heir who had just turned his back to an overbearing family and found himself alone and broke, thus willing to do anything to prove his parents he could find a way to survive without them.

It had also been Yura’s idea, which made it a terrible idea by default.

“I know a woman,” she had said, “one of mom’s friends from college. She has a blind son and she needs someone to keep him company. She’s willing to pay. A lot. But it’s... a delicate situation.”

The way she had frowned - Chanyeol could picture her even through the phone - should’ve been a red flag, but the echoes of the last fight and his father’s booming voice (responsabilities and duties and _what did I do to deserve a son like you_ ) were still fresh in his mind and Yura’s warning fell on deaf ears. He decided to meet the woman and the son. That was his first mistake.

Mrs. Kim lived in a big mansion in the countryside, where the last offshoots of the capital blend with green fields and dark woods and the _nouveau riche_ , a new kind of silver spoons risen to power in the last three decades, build their summerhouses away from the dirt of the big city (the same dirt they had sprouted from). It was an austere, Western mansion with tall ceilings and a wide rose garden, so different from the gracious, tidy houses of Korean traditional villages, with their tiled roofs, brick walls and wooden pavements. Mrs. Kim’s grandfather had hired a foreign architect to build it, the oldest maid had explained as she led Chanyeol around the house to meet his future employer. It was truly beautiful, but in all its beauty it was spooky, unfamiliar. As a rich kid himself, Chanyeol was used to luxury (he’d spent half his life running away from it) but he’d never seen such a wasteful, exaggerated display of wealth. He used to associate the idea of money with light, big condos with every comfort, airy and bright, with giant windows looking down on the city lights from the last floor of a skyscraper. Crystal, champagne and the last tech device. Shiny cars. Flight tickets for a last minute vacation in Italy. 

This was different. Old money, he thought, old money that spoke of dust and gold and skeleton hands. Of darkness. The dolls were the worst thing. Their glass eyes always seemed to follow Chanyeol everywhere and he never really got used to them.

The owner of the house was rich and lonely. Back when he had first met her, Chanyeol hadn’t known the reason her husband had filed for divorce, nor he had known she was CEO Byun’s ex wife. (The same Byun who was running for mayor of the capital. The same Byun who would, in a few years, run for president. The same Byun who never misses a business dinner with Chanyeol’s father. Chanyeol knows him quite well.) 

Of course it was to protect his own political career. After all, like the younger maids whispered, Mrs. Kim’s grandfather made his fortune through cooperation with the Japanese invaders seventy years ago and her husband couldn’t afford to have a stain like that on his family report. But Mrs. Lee, the oldest maid shook her head at the rumors. “Her family had nothing to do with the divorce. The lady is sick,” she said, her accent thick and rough, when Chanyeol asked. “Sometimes she... sees things. Or talks to people who aren’t there. It was bad publicity for his campaign to have a mad wife and a blind son. He left them behind.”

Mrs. Kim, who had taken her maiden name back after the divorce, didn’t look mad to Chanyeol. She looked young, nervous and authoritarian. Well-educated, as expected from an Ewha graduated _alumna_ who had completed her studies abroad. Pretty like a doll, as expected from a former beauty pageant. 

The blind son, Baekhyun, was even prettier, but in a haunted, cruel way. A beauty like a papercut, unexpected and stinging. A beauty like roses, which hides thorns.

Chanyeol had accepted the job because he needed the money and because he thought dealing with a blind boy his age couldn’t have possibly been difficult. _Even if he’s an ass, I just have to endure it and not get involved, right? I can walk away whenever I want._

It should’ve been simple, really. But it wasn’t. Chanyeol should’ve just listened to his gut feeling and ignored Yura’s advice. But what is done can't be undone. Baekhyun, all soft skin and puffy cheeks and nightmares tucked behind his closed eyelids, can't be undone.

Chanyeol doesn’t know what to do with the boy curled on his bed, his breaths uneven and his eyes tightly shut, his fists even tighter like he wants to fight the world (it shouldn’t be possible to sleep all pulled taut and tense like he is, but Baekhyun is Baekhyun and of course he sleeps like he wants to fight the world.) Baekhyun coughs and fidgets in his sleep, burying himself in Chanyeol’s pillow and sniffling against it. Chanyeol pulls another blanket over him, goes back to the living door and sits on the couch, eyeing the door warily. 

The clock ticks two, three, twenty minutes. There’s an empty _tteokbokki_ paper cup on the table, Baekhyun’s discarded vest is draped over the armchair and Chanyeol is almost sure one of Mrs. Kim’s men will knock at his door any time now to demand the lost boy back. 

A few hours before dawn, his phone rings. Unknown number.

Chanyeol doesn’t recognize the voice on the other side. A male voice, firm and sure. He introduces himself as one of Yura’s friends. He says he’s the one who told her about the job at Mrs. Kim’s house.

Chanyeol doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Yura told him she had heard about the job from Mrs. Kim herself. But, in retrospect, Chanyeol should’ve known Yura couldn’t have met Mrs. Kim on her own. (Just like he should’ve known Sunyoung would’ve never sneaked Baekhyun out on her own.) 

“Who is this?”

“My name is Byun Baekbom. I hear from Sunyoungie that my brother has taken quite a liking to you.”

Byun Baekbom, and Chanyeol feels so stupid for not making that connection earlier, was the name of a boy who attended his sister’s same private school. He was two years her senior, rich, handsome and, she remembers her sighing at the thought, _so cool when he played piano_. He wonders when Baekbom got to meet his sister Yura again. Maybe a party at a common friend’s place, maybe they met through their parents (from what Chanyeol knows, jis father and Byun are still on excellent terms.) He doesn’t know when it happened, but it isn’t difficult to guess _what_ happened. Even through the phone, Baekbom sounds like a charming converser. He probably slipped the information easily, between one drink and another, “And anyway, if your brother needs an easy job that makes a lot of money you could send him to my mother’s house. My little brother could use some company.”

It’s the same Baekbom who befriended a young maid called Sunyoung and asked her to keep an eye on his little brother before he left, and probably the one who convinced her to take Baekhyun to Chanyeol’s house today. It was Baekbom’s doing. Chanyeol meeting Baekhyun, Chanyeol staying - for more than two years - and coming back every time he decided to leave, under his sister’s advice. Baekhyun coming to Chanyeol, under Sunyoung’s advice. It had all been Baekbom.

Chanyeol realizes it with painful clarity, when he picks up the phone and talks to Baekhyun’s older brother for the first time. The plan unfolds in Baekbom's words, his explanations clear and neat, and for a moment Chanyeol is jealous. He wants to be like that, he wants to have that kind of control, of power.

“So, where is my Baekhyunnie now? I hope you’re treating him well.”

Baekhyun is still sleeping on Chanyeol’s bed, curled on his side under the blankets and dead tired, while his brother weaves his webs of lies and unfurls them just for Chanyeol. 

Arrogant, cocky, self assured. Chanyeol can find a bit of Baekhyun in him. Except Baekhyun has wrapped the attitude around his weaknesses, while Baekbom doesn’t seem to have any weaknesses.

Chanyeol doesn’t like Baekbom. It’s an instinctive, prickling antipathy that runs across his skin like a rash. Baekbom left. He was the older brother and he left his fourteen years old blind sibling to the only care of a schizophrenic, controlling woman who barely let him out of the house. He’s an asshole and Chanyeol kinda loathes him. But he’s Baekhyun’s only sibling and, apparently, he has a plan.

  
**xi. TORPID**  
(adj) dormant, lazy

Dealing with Baekhyun is tiring but dealing with his brother is destructive. Chanyeol has never talked to Baekhyun’s father, the infamous President Byun, but he knows he’s considered a shark in both the political and economic scene. They say he doesn’t take prisoners.

If that is true, then Byun Baekbom is a little like him. Smart, handsome and clever. Devastatingly in love with his little brother. It’s a good thing that he’s worried about Baekhyun, but Chanyeol thinks he could have worried a little earlier, _before_ Baekhyun was scarred for life. But that’s not really his business.

He leans against the wall and listens to Baekhyun talking to his brother on the phone. He’s locked himself inside the bathroom and Chanyeol can’t make out the words, but the door is thin and he can hear little stumps of conversation, butchered syllables and his whiny tone. Maybe Baekhyun is crying. He doesn’t shout. He probably knows Chanyeol is eavesdropping.

Chanyeol listen to Baekbom’s plan with two parts of disbelief and one part of anger. He is to drive Baekhyun to the flat Baekbom has already rented for him and make sure he’s safe. “For now,” Baekbom says, matter-of-factly, “the most important thing is keeping my brother away from my mother. If she finds him, I won’t be able to get him out of that house. I am rich, but my mother has both money and power. She can afford better lawyers and with Baekhyun’s disability obtaining a few years more of parental rights would be easy.” There's a moment of static through the phone as Byun Baekbom covers the phone to say something in English to someone Chanyeol cannot see. Where did he say he was living again? The States? He comes back with rustling noises and not a word of apology for leaving Chanyeol hanging. “My mother will come looking for you. Feign innocence, alright? She can't know where Baekhyun is until I've settled things with her personally, so don't tell her anything.”

He says it as if Chanyeol is on his payroll and bound to do everything he wants.

“And what if I don’t want to do it?” he asks, feeling a little daring. Next to him, Baekhyun squirms, clearly feeling uncomfortable at the way Chanyeol is undermining his brother’s authority, but unable to say anything.

“Oh, you will do it. Sunyoung says you’re a good guy and I trust her judgement.”

Chanyeol glares at the phone when the call ends. Saying he feels a little used might be an understatement. No, he doesn’t feel used. He feels robbed. As if Byun Baekbom has just drawn a clear line between Chanyeol and his little brother, a line meant to keep Chanyeol away.

But Chanyeol is a good guy and he does what he was told to do. He drives Baekhyun to the address Baekbom sent to him on kakaotalk and drops Baekhyun at the right door, he even opens it for him.

“Your brother will send someone to look after you,” he says. “Don’t worry.”

He hesitates, looks at Baekhyun, wonders if it’s alright to leave him alone. As usual, Baekhyun cuts through him like a knife.

“I’m not worried. I don’t need you. And I won’t thank you either.”

Strangely enough, the usual sneer makes Chanyeol feel more at ease. He wouldn’t know how to deal with a Baekhyun who shows his feelings, expresses gratitude and is considerate. That Baekhyun would be a stranger to him.

“It’s a studio apartment,” he says. “Tiny. The bathroom is on the left. Be careful if you walk on the right, that’s where the stove is. Don't try to use it. There’s a bed at the back of the room. And a big window, with white curtains.”

Baekhyun feigns disinterest, but he drinks the information and starts picturing the room in his head.

“I’m leaving the lights on.”

“It won’t really help me.”

“It will at least keep you from running into a wall, if you pay attention.”

“Just leave, Park Chanyeol.”

Chanyeol should leave. Baekbom was right. What’s Baekhyun to him anyway? Some boy he used to hang out with for money. Some boy he kissed once for fun. Because he was curious about the taste, the texture, the warmth of his lips. Baekhyun was a silent kisser but Chanyeol wonders, if he had insisted, if he had pressed more and harder and longer against him, the kind of sounds Baekhyun could’ve made other than the single, choked moan Chanyeol had managed to extort from him.

He shakes his head. The game is still on and he doesn’t know if he wants to play. He doesn’t know if he can win, and Chanyeol only plays to win.

“Bye, Baekhyun.”

Chanyeol walks out the door, biting his lips to keep himself from saying more. He needs to think about what he wants. He needs time. He needs a plan.

  
**xii. MOUNTEBANK**  
(n) con artist

“I did have a plan,” says Baekhyun. He also has a red pepper sauce stain on his cheek, at the corner of his lips, and Chanyeol wants to lean over and lick it clean but watching Baekhyun while he sloppily eats _tteokbokki_ with his fingers is much more entertaining.

“Wasn’t your only plan to come to my house and force me to take you in at any cost?”

“And then what? How would you have fed me? How would you have dressed me? How would you have taken care of me assuming you were so poor you accepted to have a blind boy throw food at you for the past two years as long as you got paid? And now that you don’t even have that well paid job you’ve either found a rich sugar daddy or you’re working two to three part-time jobs to afford this place.”

Chanyeol wants something snarky to say but there’s really nothing. Baekhyun is right, completely and infuriatingly right.

“I’m blind, you know, not stupid.”

“Coming to me was pretty stupid, since you just admitted I can’t help you.”

“Did you just call me stupid? Who was the one who assumed I came here to leech on him and then literally threw me on the streets to die?”

It’s easy to offend Baekhyun, literally every thing Chanyeol says gets on his nerves. But it’s even easier to say things to him instead of bottling everything up now that Chanyeol too can play the outrage card. Baekhyun hasn’t changed overnight. (Chanyeol is not sure Baekhyun will ever change.) He’s overly emotional and sharp and mean but it doesn’t matter because now Chanyeol has a choice. He doesn’t have to stay here and bite the bullet. He can shoot back. He does.

“Who was the one who assumed I owed him anything after he treated me like shit for years?”

“I’m not going to apologize for having you do the things my mother was paying you to do.”

“You’re not going to apologize for being a horrible human being.”

Oh, that hit a little too close to home. Baekhyun puffs his cheeks and drums on the table with long, nervous fingers.

“No one ever apologized to me for turning me into a horrible human being.”

“That’s not the point. You can’t ignore your responsibilities and think it’s always someone else’s fault.”

Baekhyun doesn’t apologize. The impasse lasts for a few minutes of stubborn munching on Baekhyun’s part and intense staring on Chanyeol’s part. He stares at Baekhyun’s bare face, at the little blemishes he never got to see before, painfully and acutely visible under the naked light of the lamp in Chanyeol’s kitchen. He stares at Baekhyun’s grimace when he licks his fingers clean of the sauce, too spicy for him. He stares and Baekhyun knows he’s staring - he can’t know, he has no way to know, but he knows. He just knows.

“I know nothing about the world,” says Baekhyun, in the end, after he’s done sulking. “Even before I was... like this-”

“Even before you were blind, you can say it.”

Baekhyun nods, but tightly, as if he’s refraining from snapping again. 

“I don’t know what’s outside my door, Chanyeol. Ever since my parents divorced, I’ve always lived with my mother and she was... She wasn’t well. Even I could see she wasn’t well and I’m well...” He takes a deep breath. “I’m blind, but I’m not stupid.”

He frowns for a moment as his fingers touch the bottom of the box meeting only the hot sauce. Chanyeol gets up and takes it away, dragging his chair so Baekhyun can hear and realize what is happening.

“So, you talked about a plan.”

“Yes, a plan. I like the flat my brother has rented for me. I like the driver and the cook and I like that he hired one of the maids I knew from mother’s house to make me feel at ease. But I haven’t left the house in weeks except for visiting you today. And all we’ve done today is fighting. Why do you always pick a fight with me, Chanyeol?”

Chanyeol slams the door of the cabinet shut a bit too strongly. “Maybe because you’re insufferable?”

“See? You’re doing it again. I need better friends! Or better people to hang out with. I don’t think we’re friends.”

Chanyeol doesn’t know what they are, but somehow he was expecting Baekhyun to pop up again in front of his door, wearing his worst scowl and a mean greeting. He’s so recalcitrant he could almost fool Chanyeol into believing he doesn’t really want to be here. But there’s no way he doesn’t want to be here seeing how he came here on his own.

“The sea is full of fish, they say. Go out, find someone else then.”

“I want to,” says Baekhyun, frowning. “I think I want to go to school.”

Chanyeol sits straighter. He would never admit it, but this is the most reasonable thing he’s ever heard Baekhyun say since he’s known him.

“Are you impressed?”

“No.”

“You’re a bad liar, Park Chanyeol. Don’t you have more of those rice cakes?”

“I have instant _ramyun_.”

“Let’s try it.”

He says it so casually, so easily, like he has any idea what instant _ramyun_ is. Chanyeol explains it, even if Baekhyun doesn’t ask, because one of them has to be the mature person in the room and Baekhyun looks like he’s dying to know what Chanyeol is doing but he would never ask. On the other hand, he decides he won’t ask about the school thing. Baekhyun wants him to ask, but things can’t always go like Baekhyun wants.

The _ramyun_ is poorly done and not even close to the level of spiciness Chanyeol fancies. Baekhyun finds it rather bland, but finishes it all. He makes a mess on the table and when he realizes he blushes a little. He doesn’t apologize. He finishes his food in silence.

“You’re not going to ask me about the school?”

“You’re not going to tell me?”

Baekhyun fidgets with the empty bowl, choosing his words carefully. “I’ve asked Sunyoung to find me a school for blind people. I know I’m an exception. Most blind people can go out on their own, cook on their own and live their life without people fussing over them all the time.”

Chanyeol tries to imagine a world where Baekhyun isn’t angry all the time because he needs help, a world where Baekhyun can give himself the help he can’t accept from everyone else.

“I think it’s a good idea. It’s a really good idea, Baekhyun.”

“Do you really think so?” He bites the inside of his cheek and, when he tilts his head, the reflection of the light on his watch draws white fireflies on his nose and cheek. He looks strangely vulnerable and even prettier like this. Chanyeol is not lying when he says, “I do.”

He could very much kiss Baekhyun, right now. It’s a fleeting thought, one he hasn’t entertained in a long time. He had thought those kisses, back at Baekhyun’s old house, had been enough. There are some itches you can’t help but scratch, some itches you can’t get rid of unless you scratch, and Baekhyun was both, but Chanyeol thought one time had been enough. Now, as Baekhyun looks up towards the only thing he can see in the room, the naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling, Chanyeol can’t help but stare and realize one time was not enough. It could never be enough.

He can see glimpses of the person Baekhyun could become, glimpses of the person Baekhyun could have already been if not for the years he spent crawling in the darkness. Glimpses of someone Chanyeol could fall in love with. Baekhyun is becoming that person. In front of Chanyeol. He just needs a little push in the right direction.

“Baekhyun-ah,” he says, and it comes out forced and strangled, even more awkward than the honorific _Baekhyun-ssi_ Chanyeol used to use. He’s never addressed Baekhyun so informally in his life, and it surprised them both. “I think we are. Friends.”

It takes a long time for Baekhyun to answer that.

“I’m not sure. You said it yourself many times, I’m a horrible person. I can only hurt other people. It’s fine, I know. I think I’ve always known. I won’t change overnight. I won’t become caring, or sweet or funny. I’m mean.”

“People can change.”

“I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I want to.”

 _What do you want?_ Chanyeol once asked Baekhyun that question. What does Baekhyun want? He never answered. Maybe he doesn’t know.

And Chanyeol? What does Chanyeol want? He wants Baekhyun’s lips and his hands on Baekhyun’s skin, but other than that? Does he want Baekhyun? Sultry, cruel and broken Baekhyun, with his fissures and his cracks and his empty eyes? Does he want a different Baekhyun? One who smiles and dreams and sings under the shower? Will that person ever exist or it’s just a dream? Chanyeol doesn’t know if he wants Baekhyun, but he wants to kiss Baekhyun again. He doesn’t know if he should, or if he can, but the thought throbs in his head. It would be so easy to…

Chanyeol’s phone vibrates, Byun Baekbom’s name flashing on it, and Baekhyun stutters, a little startled. It’s a text message, short and rude.

“What is happening?” asks Baekhyun.

“Your brother has sent a driver. He’s waiting for you downstairs.”

“Is it that late already?”

“It’s past midnight. I’ll take your jacket, wait a moment.”

Baekhyun tries to stop him when he walks next to his chair. He misses Chanyeol by a good inch but he grabs his attention.

“What?”

“Next time, you can visit me.”

He says it like he’s making a concession instead of asking for a favor. Chanyeol stops in front of him.

“You have hot sauce, right here,” he says, gently tapping Baekhyun’s right cheek at the corner of his mouth, where his cheeks puff when he pouts. Baekhyun doesn’t shy away at the touch, and Chanyeol rubs it with his finger. When he’s done, he pats Baekhyun’s head, combing his hair with his fingers. Baekhyun tilts his head up, blindly chasing the warmth of Chanyeol’s hand.

“Do I have hot sauce there too?” he asks, and Chanyeol maybe regrets coming so close. He can count Baekhyun’s long lashes and the moles on his face, one above his lip, one on his ear, one on the side of his face, on his temple and the one Chanyeol can’t see right now, on his thumb. He would kiss them all. It’s actually easy to picture himself kissing them all, taking his time to unravel Baekhyun and put him back together. Baekhyun steps forward until he’s standing in Chanyeol’s arms, chest to chest, as if waiting for Chanyeol to take him, but he doesn’t take the final step to close the distance on his own.

He’s offering himself and he doesn’t even know what he’s offering, how much Chanyeol wants this and how much he’s waited to do this (since the first time they met, actually.) Chanyeol could kiss him just like that. It would be a victory, sure, but what is a won battle if he’s going to lose the war in the end? If he’s going to get Baekhyun, he’s going to have to play smart.

“No, you don’t,” he says, and ruffles Baekhyun’s hair again.

“Then why are you touching my hair?”

“I just wanted to do it. I’ll come to your house when I’m free, alright?”

Disappointment spreads on Baekhyun’s face, red on his neck and nose and ears. He looks confused and a little betrayed. It’s alright, Chanyeol doesn’t want him to know how close he went to asking for a kiss. That would give him leverage, an advantage Chanyeol can’t afford to lose, not if he wants to win this game. 

Baekhyun pouts. He looks like he wants to ask whether Chanyeol likes him or not, but he won’t do it on his own, he’s too proud. Chanyeol won’t tell him either. Let him languish. Let him wonder whether Chanyeol still wants him, whether that kiss at his house a two months ago was just a random twist of fate or something more. Let him want Chanyeol, in secret or out in the open, until he wants so much he’s willing to play according to Chanyeol’s rules. The game is on.

  
**xiii. CRAPULENT**  
(adj) sick from excessive eating or drinking

Chanyeol is not a wizard, he doesn’t know how to deal with spells, how to break curses. Sometimes, when he looks at Baekhyun, he sees the ghost of his mother following him around closely, the shadows of that house still lurking around him. He can see them in broad daylight and he wonders how terrible, how dark they become in the world of shades of grey and black only Baekhyun can see.

He brings chicken and beer and gets Baekhyun tipsy, not quite drunk but happier than usual, giddy and blushed and almost smiling. He teaches him how to order _jjajangmyeon_ with his shiny new phone and Baekhyun surprises him by getting the money right on his second try when the door rings.

“I learned that in school,” he mumbles, under his breath. “Orientation and mobility. They’re teaching us a lot of things.”

The smell of _jjajangmyeon_ invades the air and Baekhyun perks up on an elbow and sniffs the air curiously.

“Do you want me to describe it?”

They both freeze. He’s said those words so many times, in different circumstances, and, just like a spell, something the right words can make the difference. It’s all it takes, and for a moment Chanyeol can feel it again. The oppressing, dusty darkness, the silence, the dark curse keeping Baekhyun prisoner.

He blinks, realizing he’s not in that house anymore. The nightmare is over. Baekhyun hasn’t been there in the last ten months. He hasn’t seen or talked to his mother in the last six months.

Chanyeol has. Away from the constricting spell of the mansion, Mrs. Kim too looked different, less like a sorceress in her own lair of darkness and more like the rich and powerful ex-wife of a rich, powerful man. The edge of madness hadn’t changed, and if, for a moment, Chanyeol had felt bad for taking her son away, the feeling had quickly died. This was, after all, the woman who had turned Baekhyun into an ugly thing made of rage, or regret, of wishes trapped in a tiny room of velvet and brocade.

Ten months, and Baekhyun has changed, but not too much. He still talks like a spoiled kid, he still gets angry when things don’t go his way, he’s still mean, purposefully creal, emotionally abusive when he can. They fight, a lot. Chanyeol always fights back. Sometimes, Baekhyun apologizes.

It’s all about the small victories, the tiny steps. Chanyeol breaks the plastic film open and the smell of _jjajangmyeon_ becomes more intense.

“It’s black. White noodles and black sauce.” He tastes it, to make sure it’s not too hot. “I can’t believe you haven’t tried _jjajangmyeon_ before, though. Are you sure you’re Korean?”

Baekhyun shrugs.

“Have you seen my mother? Can you imagine her eating something that wasn’t specially made by her personal chef? Yes, me neither.” He pouts. “I don’t know anything. I used to think it was because of my disability, but talking with my brother I realized it has nothing to do with how much I can see. She kept Baekbom at home too, she would never let him leave the house. He knew nothing of the world, just like me. When our parents divorced and he was forced to leave it was the best day of his life.”

_But he left you behind. How could he._

“Scoot closer,” he says, sitting next to him. He watches Baekhyun reach for him, slowly, tentatively, until he has an exact idea of where and how Chanyeol is sitting. He places the chopsticks in Baekhyun’s hands, waits as he separates them and tries to place them between his fingers. “You’re holding them wrong, let me help.”

One year ago, Baekhyun would’ve scoffed. He would’ve needed the help and he would’ve refused it. Now, he lets Chanyeol adjust his grip on the chopsticks and lead his hands down, towards the bowl.

“Can I touch it?” he asks.

“You paid for it, you can do anything you want. But things would get messy. _Jjajang_ is... black.”

“What I can’t see can’t hurt me,” says Baekhyun, and it’s difficult to say if it’s said in a joking or self-deprecating manner. Lately, it’s so difficult to read Baekhyun. He used to wear his emotion on his sleeve, on his chest, on the poisonous tip of his tongue. Now he’s softer, more reserved, the sharp edges tempered and sanded, the poison hidden but still deadly.

Baekhyun doesn’t try to touch the noodles. He eats them clumsily, but without Chanyeol’s help. Small victories, tiny steps. Chanyeol is not a wizard, he’s just a boy. Baekhyun is one too.

“Is it good?” he asks, watching Baekhyun munch slowly.

“It’s not spicy. I like it.”

They eat in silence, clean and comfortable silence, the sound Baekhyun has learnt to like the most. Normally they would chat, Chanyeol would ask about the classes Baekhyun is taking or if he’s gone out on his own lately. Baekhyun would inquire about Chanyeol’s internship and his mother’s health and Jongdae’s last girlfriend. They would end up fighting, like usual, but they’re too tired and they’ve drunk too much for verbal spars and Chanyeol finds himself dozing off and almost wakes up before he realizes Baekhyun is napping too. He yawns, closes his eyes, rests his head against the couch. Only five minutes, he thinks.

That’s how Sunyoung finds them when she opens the door, Baekhyun sprawled on the pristine floor, Chanyeol sitting cross-legged next to him. She nudges him awake and silently gestures towards Chanyeol’s phone. A yellow light is flashing, and when he unlocks it he finds at least twenty messages from Baekbom and a missed call.

He gets up and follows the girl outside, on the balcony. He closes the door carefully. Two months ago Baekbom came to visit and left the door open when he came back from a smoke. Chanyeol and Sunyoung found Baekhyun on the balcony, staring at the street below without really seeing it.

(“How tall is it?” he had asked, his face unreadable. It was sixteen floors. Baekbom never smoked in Baekhyun’s apartment again.)

“The young Master asked me to check on you two. He said neither of you was answering his calls.”

“We fell asleep,” says Chanyeol, shrugging. To his dismay, the older Byun sibling calls to inquire about his little brother on a daily basis. He doesn’t like when Chanyeol doesn’t pick up. Self-conceited asshole. He browses through the incoming messages, noticing Baekbom’s increasing annoyance at the lack of response. “You didn’t need to come down.”

“It’s just two floors,” answers her. “Besides, this is my job now. He’s always been a better boss than his mother was.”

“Well, it would be really difficult to be worse than her, you know? But he’s still a smug fucker. I don’t like him.”

Chanyeol honestly thinks Baekbom is a controlling bastard. It takes one to find another, after all. He’s quite aware the older Byun heir doesn’t really like him either - at least the feeling is mutual - but he’s…

“How did he say? Willing to put up with me on the assumption I make his brother happy.”

“And you, oppa? Are you willing to put up with him for our Baekhyunnie?”

Chanyeol doesn’t really know the answer. It’s too early to know whether Baekbom sees him as a threat or an ally. (He’s too early to choose between being a threat or being an ally.)

Sunyoung smokes slowly. “Maybe the young Master is just feeling guilty for leaving his brother behind. Maybe he didn’t think...”

“He knew. He knew what was happening. He even tried to see Baekhyun more than once, but Mrs. Kim… It’s difficult to do something against her, even for him.”

Sunyoung grimaces. “I’m glad I don’t work for her anymore.”

“Same. Same.”

“Bringing him to you was the best thing I’ve done for him in the five years I’ve worked as a maid in that house.”

Chanyeol is not sure of that but she smiles and he smiles back.

  
**xiv. ABSQUATULATE**  
(v) to leave without saying goodbye; french exit

Sometimes Chanyeol forgets how it really began. It’s easy to forget and just fall into step with Baekhyun, with the long, loud audio messages he sends Chanyeol at night before he goes to sleep, with the long walks they take together in spring, feeling the last cherry blossoms falling with the rain on their shoulders. With his first, terrible spicy ramyun - really, he just heats the water and throws noodles and spices in the pot when it’s boiling, but for everyone, for Chanyeol, for Sunyoung, for Baekbom who’s skype calling from New York, for _Baekhyun himself_ , it’s like winning a long war.

Baekhyun has improved so much. He’s changing every day, making efforts, growing up, so it’s easy to forget the angry, cruel, venom spitting child Chanyeol first met at the Kim family mansion. But he’s still there, with his red, tender lips and his whispered threats and that cry choked in his throat, that cry he never wants to let go. His accusing, blind eyes.

When he comes back - he’s never really left, he was just accurately hidden behind all the lines of defence, the layers of self-control Baekhyun has learnt how to put up - Chanyeol is not ready. 

He’s still deciding what to wear for the night, a _sogaeting_ Jongdae organized for him with a secretary working in his same firm, when his phone chirps. At first, he doesn’t understand the words appearing on the screen. They’re garbled and broken, some completely unintelligible. Baekhyun must’ve used a speech recognition software to write it, but he either wasn’t spelling the words very well or…

He calls Baekhyun, but the boy doesn’t pick up. Sunyoung doesn’t either. It’s her free day, Chanyeol remembers. He thinks about it for a moment, wondering whether he should be worried. He calls Baekbom. It’s a quick conversation and it leaves him even more restless and nervous than before.

“Yes, I’m going to check on him. Yes, I’ll tell you when I know. Don’t worry, he’s probably... It sounded like he was drunk... No, I said not to worry, ok? I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Just... I’m hanging up, Baekbom-ssi.”

He calls Jongdae.

“Don’t wait for me tonight. Yes, it’s a Baekhyun problem. No, really, don’t worry. There’ll be another time, ok? Tell Kang Seulgi-ssi I’m sorry. I really have no time, Jongdae.”

He runs towards the subway station. He tells himself everything is alright, Baekhyun is strong. Baekhyun is better than before, but he can’t quite believe his own words. He frets, wishing the train could move faster.

The concierge opens the door easily, already used to Chanyeol’s constant visits, but the elevator ride seems to be taking forever. Chanyeol stares at his own reflection in the mirror, surprised at how tense he looks.

It’s normal, isn’t it? Baekhyun is his friend, it’s only natural that he’s worried about him. He smoothes out his expression, feigning a calmness he doesn’t feel. The elevator doors open with a ding and Chanyeol strides towards Baekhyun’s door, typing the secret code on the pad in a frenzy. He rushes inside.

“Baekhyun-ah!” he calls, to let Baekhyun know he’s there. The apartment is dark, but he doesn’t waste time in finding the lights.

Baekhyun is sitting on his armchair in front of the window. The view is beautiful, city lights shining brightly, orange and gold and blue and red, but Baekhyun stares past them, past what he can’t see, to something Chanyeol can’t dare to imagine.

“Baekhyun,” he says, and it’s a reminiscence, a swift deja vu. He remembers the tightness in Baekhyun’s shoulder, he remembers the curl in his mouth. He remembers his anger, ice cold and jagged, keen edged. Mrs. Kim’s pretty doll, _her son_ , is back.

“What are you doing here?” asks Baekhyun, drawling every word. Chanyeol approaches him warily, as if he’s getting close to a wounded beast.

“I came to check on you. You sent me a message, remember? I was worried.”

“Worried,” Baekhyun chuckles. There’s a soft clink and a bright twinkling as he puts the empty bottle of soju on the table in front of him, stretching down to reach it. He lays it too close to the edge and the bottle falls down, breaking in thousand pieces.

There’s a sigh, maybe a hiccup, but Baekhyun is not crying. He would never cry. He’s only drunk. A quick glance to the counter shows the smashed bottle is not the only one he opened tonight. He’s not as wasted as he wants Chanyeol to believe, but he’s not in control either.

Baekhyun leans back on the armchair and Chanyeol stands next to him for a moment, staring at the glass spread on the floor and cursing slowly under his breath. He sends a quick message to Baekbom, explaining the situation, but he puts the phone on silent immediately afterwards.

“What are you doing here?” asks Baekhyun again, slurring all the words. His head lolls onto his shoulder, showing his neck. He looks languid, exposed, but it’s not the first time Chanyeol has seen him drunk. He knows how calculated, how deliberate, everything Baekhyun is doing or saying is. “I thought you had a date.”

“Is that why you sent me that message? To make me rush here and to ruin my night?”

Baekhyun chortles again, full of fake joy. “Ah. You were very worried, really?” He pushes himself up, slowly, staggering. Chanyeol tries to help him but his hand is slapped away. “Don’t touch me, I need to drink.”

He blindly feels around the table until his fingers close around the neck of another bottle. He weighs it in his hand to make sure it contains alcohol.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Baekhyun.”

“What would you know? What...”

He drinks, again, straight from the battle, his adam’s apple going up and down and his neck stretched and exposed. Chanyeol waits until he’s drunk more than half of the bottle before he takes it away from him. Baekhyun struggles a little but his hold is weak and he lets it go.

“Give it back,” he says, in a cold, hard voice. “Give it back and go away!” 

“You called me here! You should at least admit that!”

“Did I ruin your night, Chanyeol? Is that why you won’t me let enjoy mine in peace?”

He flails, a little, blindly trying to get the bottle from Chanyeol. It might be calculated or it might not be - Baekhyun is blind, but Chanyeol’s voice was close enough for him to have a very good idea of where Chanyeol is standing. He finds his face instead, and it’s not strong but it’s still a punch and it sends him down. Chanyeol feels a strong, intense spike of pain in his shoulder and leg. He faintly realizes he’s managed to hit both the coffee table and the armchair and he’s landed in a poodle of glass shard. It’s only when he hears the smash of the bottle on the ground that he realizes Baekhyun has fallen too, right next to him. 

The smell of alcohol becomes more pungent, acrid on Chanyeol’s nostrils and sour on his clothes. He feels cold as the puddle of soju grows on the ground, soaking his shirt. He feels the stab of glass on his back, his elbow, his thighs, he feels Baekhyun’s hot breath on his neck, smelling of blueberry soju and anger.

He knows Baekhyun is not as wasted as he looks. He knows Baekhyun is warm, as if feverish, and heavy. He knows Baekhyun is bleeding, because it trickles down his arm and drips on Chanyeol’s neck and chest.

“Is this what you wanted when you called me here?”

Baekhyun sighs, long and drawn out, and his nails dig into the skin of Chanyeol’s shoulders through the fabric. He barely feels the sting over the pain in his back.

 _Where have you been?_ he wants to ask. He knows this Baekhyun. He knows his games and his subtle tactics and his weaknesses he’ll never be allowed to hit. In this game, Baekhyun is the enemy, but if Chanyeol defeats him it’s game over for himself too.

“I thought we were past this, Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun only laughs sourly and his hands follow the curve of Chanyeol’s neck, feeling his pulse, lingering on the night stubble on his chin. Baekhyun has never touched him, never like this. He uses his hands to look at him and it’s sticky and bloody and feather light.

“Go away,” he says, softly, as if he’s only talking with himself. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Baekhyun, we have to...”

His voice hardens, not soft and lost but shrill and sharp, like a crystal dagger.

“Go back to your girls and your dates and your friends. You think I don’t know? I know we’re not really friends. I know my brother is paying you to stay with me just like my mom did. I’m not stupid.”

And it’s, really, the most unconceivable thing, the last thing Chanyeol would’ve ever expected from him.

“Am I pitiful? Do you feel happy when you walk away from here?” He lowers his head until their foreheads are touching and his voice breaks. “I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want... I thought I could, but I didn’t know anything back then. I thought having you there, even if you had to pretend, was good enough for me, but it’s not good enough. It’s not.”

He sobs, and he’s not crying. Chanyeol isn’t crying either but it feels like they both are.

“Is this what you think? Is this what you were thinking all this time?” he asks, and Baekhyun is breathing so harshly and shaking and they’re both bleeding and they can’t do this. Not now, not like this.

Chanyeol considers his options for a moment and acts quickly. He dislodges Baekhyun from his thighs in a single motion. It’s easy. Baekhyun is too drunk to resist. He only got them in this position because he managed to surprise Chanyeol, but he’s no match for Chanyeol, not even when he’s sober. Baekhyun curses violently when he falls and Chanyeol winces, remembering the glass shards. He gets up, hits the lights first. The entire apartment is a mess. Baekhyun is sitting on the floor, surrounded by spilled soju and broken glass. His face is swollen and flushed. His shoulders are tense. He hides his face in his knees when he feels the cold, white light.

Chanyeol squats in front of him. He sighs.

“No reasonable amount of money would convince me to deal with someone as obnoxious and stupid as you are if I didn’t like you, Byun Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun squares his shoulders. If he could see, he would probably punch Chanyeol. If he could see, Chanyeol would probably kiss him. He only thrashes a little when the glass shards are extracted from his body and Chanyeol showers him in antiseptic. When he comes back after doing the same for himself, Baekhyun is lying on his bed, pretending to be asleep. He’s not, but Chanyeol doesn’t care.

 _Tomorrow,_ he thinks, _tomorrow we’ll talk._

  
**xv. SOCKDOLAGER**  
(n) decisive retort; mic drop

When he wakes up, the apartment is empty. He tries to fool himself into thinking Baekhyun only left for a walk, but the boy doesn’t come back for the whole morning. Baekbom sends him a message.

_He’s coming to visit me for a few days. I know you’re angry but please give him time. He’s just confused._

Chanyeol laughs, incredulous, at the screen of his phone, because even Byun Baekbom - arrogant prick Byun Baekbom, smug and bossy and conceited, who’d justify his brother’s behavior until the end of the world - is admitting Baekhyun did something wrong.

Chanyeol doesn’t want to give Baekhyun time. He gave him a lot of time. He tried to do the right thing for himself, to cut all ties with Baekhyun, and it didn’t work. He tried to do the right thing for Baekhyun, to become his friend, and that too didn’t work. He’s starting to run out of options. He doesn’t want to do the wrong thing, but he will if he needs to.

He sends a message to Baekhyun. Only one. His own voice, because he doesn’t want a synthesizer to say this to Baekhyun.

He listens to it many times before he sends it. He wonders if it can convey how much he’s tired, how much he’s disappointed. How much he wants things to go his way. He doesn’t know when things moved past the point of simple physical attraction and he wonders whether becoming friends with him actually helped or made it worse. He knows he can’t be with someone who runs away every time things go wrong. (He knows it and he wants Baekhyun to come back anyway.)

They’re only a few words, but he wants them to reach Baekhyun and he wants Baekhyun to reach him. He listens to the message one last time.

_Aren’t you tired of playing games?_

He presses _send_.

  
**xvi. SESQUIPEDALIAN**  
(adj) containing many syllables; long winded

Hide-and-seek doesn’t last for long this time.

Chanyeol comes home after a terrible day at the office, feeling tired and tense, ready to punch someone in the face, and he finds Baekhyun sitting on his couch like he owns the house, talking to Chanyeol’s roommate like he owns him too. It’s kinda annoying.

“Oh, Chanyeol, you’re back. Jongdae was telling me about that girl you went out with two days ago. What was her name? Seulgi?”

Chanyeol can’t believe he’s doing this. Meanwhile, Jongdae replies, completely missing the elephant in the room. “Yes! She’s a coworker of mine and she’s really cute. I can’t believe he turned her down for three weeks before he accepted. I was starting to believe he wasn’t interested at all.”

Baekhyun has the nerve to smirk, but it comes out just a little sour. 

“I actually had someone else in mind,” says Chanyeol, deciding to interrupt this little charade before he ends up killing Baekhyun. “But that person doesn’t seem to be interested.” Jongdae stares, a little confused, but Baekhyun’s eyes narrow dangerously. 

Chanyeol can’t believe he’s being so petty. Baekhyun is the king of pettiness and Chanyeol is usually wise enough to recognize a trap when he sees it, but right now he’s beyond caring. After all, Baekhyun lays his traps in broad daylight and doesn’t even bother to hide them because he knows someone will walk on them anyway. Chanyeol wants to stomp on them with all his weight.

“And how would that person know you’re interested when you’ve done nothing to show them?” insists Baekhyun, voice cold and biting.

“Well, sure, because becoming their friend and hanging around them all the time even if they’re the grossest assholes of this world is not good enough for them. Maybe they needed a written declaration, I don’t know.”

He can feel Jongdae’s eyes, going back and forth between him and Baekhyun as he does the math in his head. He opens his mouth in a silent _oh_ that widens into an _aaah_ , before he gets up quickly.

“Oh, I... I think I need to go? Like, I’m late. For something.”

He pats Chanyeol on his way out, mouthing _Baekhyun??? Really?_ and flees. His absence makes the room even heavier.

Chanyeol doesn’t move from where he’s standing next to the door. He knows it makes Baekhyun antsy when he doesn’t know where the other people in the room are, but he doesn’t care. He can be petty too.

Baekhyun takes a short breath and his fists tighten at his sides.

“So, I suppose you want an explanation.”

“Shouldn’t it be an apology?”

Baekhyun grits his teeth. “Are you really holding me responsible for what happened at my place, Chanyeol?”

Oh, yes, he is. He knows Baekhyun planned it. He knows Baekhyun sent him that message because he knew Chanyeol had a date and he wanted to ruin it. Chanyeol is aware it takes more than a few bottles of soju to make Baekhyun _that_ drunk. But he's also sure Baekhyun slipped that day and showed something he didn’t really want to show. He said something he would’ve never said under normal circumstances.

“I got drunk, Chanyeol, that’s what people do. When they have a rough day, when they’re depressed and sad and alone and their only friend is out to have fun with other people,” he sucks in a sharp breath but doesn’t stop, “or when they like someone but it doesn’t work... Sometimes, people are allowed to drink... Right?”

“Baekhyun,” he tries, but Baekhyun has clearly researched this speech in his mind and he won’t stop until he’s done.

“Why are you even mad, Chanyeol? I just wanted to get drunk. Actually most people my age get drunk. Should I not be allowed just because I can’t see? I’m still able to make decisions for myself, you know? And if I decide to spend and entire night chugging alcohol and wake up the following day in the most painful state of hangover I should be free to do it without anyone questioning me.”

Chanyeol chuckles silently. Good argument, really, but Baekhyun is completely missing the point.

“I am your friend, if I don’t question you then who will?”

“Are you really sure we’re friends?”

“What should we be then?” he says, taking a step forward and slipping on the couch next to Baekhyun, purposefully hovering just to feel him tense at their sudden closeness. That’s the slip, the thing Baekhyun didn’t want him to know. Baekhyun is slipping, again, and he bites his lips to hold the words in but Chanyeol is having none of this shit from him, not now.

“No, dare to tell, Baekhyun. Give me a rational explanation or an apology or something. If we’re not friends, what are we? But be careful, last time I forgave you because you were drunk, but if you dare say some other bullshit about your brother paying me to hang out with you I won’t be held responsible for my actions. It’s insulting, ok? That I would stay here and endure your shitty personality and your even shittier behavior for money when I’m doing my best to stay despite every terrible thing you say or do! Because I like you!”

He hadn’t realized he was raising his voice, but he finds himself shouting all of a sudden. It’s wrong, it’s so wrong, because he wanted to say those words out loud, simple and clean, and he wanted Baekhyun to _get it_. Those words are precious. Too precious to be used like weapons in a war they’re both going to lose anyway.

Baekhyun stops. He shakes, for a long moment, like a leaf in the autumn wind, torn between holding tight to the branch or letting go, letting itself fall. 

“You like me?” he says, voice thin and nervous and full of disbelief. “Are you sure you like _me_? Because then, why won’t make a move?”

“I’m trying to give you time!” he explodes. “To grow up! To improve! To stop being so angry! What do you think? That I like when you treat me like shit all the time only because, oh buh buh, you cannot see?”

He pants, breathless, staring at Baekhyun’s beautiful face, at his empty eyes. Like a leaf in the autumn wind, Baekhyun stops shaking. He doesn’t hold on and he doesn’t fall. Instead, he catches fire.

“Oh, no, Park Chanyeol, you don’t want me,” he says, low and poisonous, blood rushing to his face bright and warm. “You want a better version of me, because I’m apparently not good enough for you! Well, if you want someone like that you can get out Chanyeol, because I’m not that person. I’ll never be that person!”

“It’s not what I said, don’t twist my words Baekhyun.”

“Then what do you want? Tell me! You don’t like me the way I am, you know I can’t change, why are you here? What do you want from me?

Chanyeol takes a step forward and it takes all his self control to keep his hands on his sides, away from Baekhyun - and to keep his heart inside his chest, away from Baekhyun.

“You’re asking me what do I want?” he says, and it’s difficult, so difficult not to touch Baekhyun, because he’s just _there_ , looking flushed and angry and breathless and terribly, cruelly available. Sometimes Chanyeol wishes he could be selfish. He could just extend a hand and touch Baekhyun the way he wants. He could. But this moment is precious and fragile and Chanyeol is not a child in a china shop anymore. He must be careful or everything will break. (He must be careful or he’ll give up to the instinct of smashing everything to pieces on purpose just to stop being careful around it.)

“Yes, I am. What do you want, Chanyeol?”

He asked the same question to Baekhyun, a long time ago - it feels like another lifetime. He also asked the same question to himself, so many times. He knows the answer by now.

( _I want to kiss you, now and then. I wanted to kiss you the first time I saw you and for all the time I was working for you, and I kissed you before I left because I don’t think I could’ve ever left without trying, at least once. And I thought it was over but I never really stopped thinking about you, so I want to kiss you. I’d like to push you against the wall, the door, the bed, anywhere really, and kiss you how much I want. I want to tilt your head and kiss your neck and stick my hands under your shirt and inside your pants and I want you to like me too, I want you to kiss me back and call me all the time and think about me so much you think you’re going crazy. I want you._ )

“I want you, Baekhyun. And it has nothing to do with the way you are. I like you when you’re angry and when you’re sad and when you’re happy and I really like you all the time, you get it? I like you even if everything you do is sending me mixed signals and running away and hurting me. And I don’t want you to change, but I’m not going to start anything until I’m one hundred percent sure you’re not going to end it. I won’t let anyone ruin this, not even you. That’s how much I want you.”

He doesn’t know if Baekhyun understands the ugliness of what he’s saying. Baekhyun thinks he’s good at manipulating people, but he’s never met someone like Chanyeol, someone who’s unrelenting and dedicated, someone who’s implacable and unyielding and remorseless. Baekhyun is cunning and sharp, but Chanyeol is smooth and sweet like honey and that makes the deception look even more innocent. He _will_ have Baekhyun and he _will_ have him at his own conditions. That’s why he’s been waiting, until Baekhyun is so in love with him, so caught in his trap, that he’ll never even realize it’s a trap. Chanyeol won’t let him realize.

But Chanyeol was right, the time for games is gone. He needs facts. He needs declarations of love. He needs Baekhyun.

“Do you really like me too?” asks Baekhyun. He looks stubborn, he looks unsure. He looks angry. It’s usually so easy to read him, because he wears his emotions proudly, but this time he looks so confused Chanyeol can’t read him at all.

He takes Baekhyun’s hand, spreads it with his own and locks their fingers together, then slowly, delicately brings it to his own face.

“And you? Do you like me Baekhyun?”

Baekhyun’s hand is light, hesitant, his fingers cool against Chanyeol’s face. 

“I asked first,” he mutters, and Chanyeol scoffs. Typical.

“I’m not going to say it if you don’t say it first.”

The line of Baekhyun’s mouth hardens and he tries to take a step back, but Chanyeol pulls him back against his chest.

“I thought we weren’t playing games anymore, Baekhyun. I can’t chase you forever.”

“But I want you to chase me forever,” he says, like it’s obvious, like it’s a good thing the one he’s asking.

Chanyeol would really chase him forever if he thought it would lead him to Baekhyun’s heart. But it wouldn’t. The more he chases, the more Baekhyun runs away.

He lets the boy go, takes a step back himself. A deep breath to clear his head.

“You’re so selfish, Baekhyun. But I can’t do that. I just poured my heart to you and you can’t even say you like me back.” Chanyeol pulls and pulls. Whether Baekhyun snaps or Chanyeol lets go first, the recoil will hurt them both. But if he stops now he loses the final prize. “Maybe we’re better off as...”

To be someone who likes to lay traps, Baekhyun really doesn’t know how to recognize one. Or maybe, just like Chanyeol, he doesn’t care. (Unlike Chanyeol he’s too desperate to care.)

“I like you. I like you, ok? I... I like you too. But please don’t go. I can’t even see you, so I wouldn’t know how to chase you back. I...”

His lips tremble and he breathes as if there's not enough air in this world for him. Chanyeol wraps his arms around him, feels him tense and relax and tense again.

“I’m here. Even you can’t see me, I’m here.”

Baekhyun doesn’t know how to be hugged. He doesn’t know how to be kissed. He leans his head on Chanyeol’s chest, stiffly, explores his back with trembling hands.

“I won’t change overnight.”

“I never asked you to.”

“It will be difficult.”

“Because getting here was such a piece of cake. Baekhyun-ah, don’t worry, I know what I’m getting myself into...”

“No, you should listen. You should know. I don’t trust people, I’m paranoid and jealous and petty and mean. I only know how to hurt the ones I love.” Chanyeol’s heart misses a beat. He said that to Baekhyun, a long time ago. He’s still thinking about it. “I’m always angry and there will be days when I’ll hate you and you’ll hate me and...”

Chanyeol stops him with a finger on his lips.

“I’m going to kiss you,” he says. “Any moment now. I won’t care if you’re still talking.”

He leans down and... the doorbell rings.

Chanyeol groans and Baekhyun groans and the doorbell rings again, insistent and cruel, and Baekhyun murmurs something that sounds awfully like, “I think it’s my brother,” and Chanyeol maybe curses. Ok, he definitely curses. But he opens the door, because he knows better than to antagonize Baekhyun’s brother.

When the door opens, Baekbom looks at his face and then at Baekhyun’s, who’s trailing behind Chanyeol like a lost duckling. His face opens in a wicked smile. “Were you busy?” he asks, looking smug and clearly happy to be a cockblocker. “You said two hours Baekhyun and you’ve been here for the whole afternoon.”

“It’s not my fault he came home like ten minutes ago,” mutters Baekhyun, but his brother promptly ignores him.

“Although I’m really glad you managed to find a compromise, you still have stuff to do with me.”

“What kind of stuff?” asks Chanyeol immediately. His hold on Baekhyun tightens. He can’t believe Byun Baekbom managed to interrupt him _again_.

The smile he receives is overly sweet and fake.

“Family stuff.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m bringing Baekhyun home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaebol: Korean business conglomerate ($$$)  
> jjajangmyeon: noodles in black bean sauce  
> sogaeting: matchmaking meeting


	3. The thing I realize is, that it’s not what you take, it’s what you leave.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trial, error and everything in between.

  
_The thing I realize is, that it’s not what you take, it’s what you leave._  
― Jennifer Niven, All the Bright Places

  
**xvii. RECIDIVIST**  
(n) repeat offender

The driveway is frozen. It shines like silver and moonlight and cracks under Chanyeol’s shoes. The rose bushes, dark, scrawny and naked if not for a thin veil of ice, claw at the sleeves of his coat when he walks. They’re considerably bigger than the last time Chanyeol was here, a few months ago.

It was spring back then and the roses were in bloom. But now it’s winter and, with Baekhyun gone, no one has reminded Mrs. Kim to prune the roses in many long months. The plants have grown, swallowing the trees and the walls, trapping the house in a hug of vines and thorns.

One year ago, Baekhyun walked out of this house with one of the maids and didn’t come back. Until now.

One of the butlers opens the door for Baekbom, Baekhyun and Chanyeol. The head of the maids, Mrs. Lee - she looks older than Chanyeol remembered - serves them warm tea, but Baekbom refuses.

“Wait for me here,” he says before he leaves them alone. “I’ll speak with mother first.”

The house hasn’t changed. Being here still feels like stepping in another world, another time. Chanyeol had forgotten how difficult it was, how claustrophobic and heavy this house could be. He pinches his leg to remind himself he can leave any time he wants.

Out there, away from these thick walls and dark rooms, there’s a world of warmth, of bright city lights, stands of spicy street foods and the laughter of the high school students coming back from their _hagwon_ late at night. That world is real and close, less than an hour of car away, but it seems so far away right now. And if it’s far for Chanyeol, who’s always lived in it, he wonders how Baekhyun must be feeling right now. For most of his life, his entire world was just this house, this gloomy, dusty house.

Chanyeol steps close to him, holds his hand and hides their intertwined fingers in the folds of his coat. They can both hear Baekbom’s voice, rising behind closed doors, and Mrs. Kim’s shrill, cold replies.

“You should’ve stayed in the car,” murmurs Baekhyun. “Mother won’t be happy to have you here.”

“The last time I’ve been here she slapped me. The time before too. Should I hide? I think she’ll slap me again.”

“When did that happen?” asks Baekhyun.

“The first time was before I kissed you and the second time after you ran away, when she summoned me here to ask me where you were.”

“I don’t know about the second time, but for the first time you deserved to be slapped. You kissed me and ran away. I deserved better.”

Chanyeol inches even closer and Baekhyun leans onto him, resting his head on Chanyeol’s shoulder.

“At least she slapped me _before_ I kissed you. I don’t think I would still be here otherwise. No one is allowed to taint her perfect little son.”

Baekhyun suppresses a tight bitter sound at the back of his throat, a snicker gone wrong.

“I’m not perfect, nor little. But you _have_ tainted me, I can give her that.”

Oh, but this is a surprise. This is... new.

“Did I?”

“Well, yes. It’s not like I’ve ever thought about sex until you arrived and I heard the maids talk about you and what they thought you could do.” He probably senses Chanyeol’s surprise at the sudden confession and clicks his tongue. “Didn’t you want to know? If I like you or not?”

Baekhyun drags him towards the couch. It’s been one year, but he still remembers where everything is so well, every piece of furniture and every corner. They’re clear in his mind, printed in white lines above the darkness of his eyes.

“I didn’t like you when I lived here,” he says, “My mother hired you because she wanted to give me a friend, but I never wanted a part-time job kind of friend. I kinda loathed you in the beginning.”

“For real?” He scoffs. “ I would’ve never realized. Your hostility went completely unnoticed.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t work inside this house, Park Chanyeol.”

“Sarcasm works everywhere, Byun Baekhyun.”

There’s a sudden scream, the sound of porcelain shattering coming from the other room. Baekhyun’s hold on his wrist tightens. 

“Is everything alright?”

Baekhyun shakes his head. “I don’t want to be here. I shouldn’t have come back, but I thought I was ready and...”

Chanyeol wonders which ghosts Baekhyun is seeing in the darkness. Everything he tried to leave behind is here. All his fears, waiting for him at home.

“I’ve worked so much to change, to be better. But when I’m here, I feel...”

“Tell me. When did you start to like me?” he asks, hoping to distract Baekhyun.

“When you said we were friends, in the kitchen of your house. Maybe even earlier, when you brought me home and we ate _tteokbokki_ in your kitchen. You let me sleep in your bed.”

One of Chanyeol’s hands is in Baekhyun’s lap, his fingers prisoner of Baekhyun’s hold, but he lets the other one curl possessively on Baekhyun’s shoulder, tucking him on his side.

“But I didn’t like you when you were here. I could tell that you didn’t like me or your job. You only wanted to get the money.”

“You never made things easy for-”

Baekhyun doesn’t let him finish. His nails clamp on Chanyeol’s wrist, tight but not enough to hurt. “I know! I know, ok? I still didn’t like you at all. I hoped you would leave soon but the more you stayed the more I hated it. Then I realized that playing with you was funny. I wanted to know how much were you willing to bend in front of me before you broke.”

“Then I left.”

“Then you left,” repeats Baekhyun, “and I felt lonely. I missed you. I was angry when you came back because you weren’t supposed to make me miss you. But I missed you too much to send you away again.” The grandfather clock ticks. Baekbom is still arguing with Baekhyun’s mother, but Baekhyun slumps a little against Chanyeol, relaxing his shoulders. “And then, one day, I heard the maids talking about you.”

“Very good things, I hope.”

There’s a curl at the edge Baekhyun’s lips, like the ghost of a smile. “They said you were very handsome and that you had a mouth... that could... do things.”

Chanyeol laughs and Baekhyun snarls like a cat and tries to get away from him, but Chanyeol wraps both his arms around Baekhyun, as if to shelter him against the darkness of the house, and pulls him against his chest.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh. I was just… very flattered?” He ignores Baekhyun’s low grumbling. “So you started to have dirty thoughts about me?”

“Not exactly. I… That came later, ok? I never thought about you in that way before.”

“Maybe you didn’t like me like that, but you were jealous. You were,” he says, stopping Baekhyun on the verge of vehement denial. “I know you, Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun refuses to answer but Chanyeol remember his outbursts every time one of Chanyeol’s friends from university was mentioned, or every time Sunyoung stopped to chat with Chanyeol on his way to Baekhyun’s room.

“I wasn’t jealous. I just... I knew you were paid and you didn’t really want to be my friend. We weren’t even friends but having you there made things a little better and I didn’t want you to leave me for other people.”

“That’s called jealousy, Baekhyun-ah.”

“I hated you. I hated you so much and I know you hated me too. But I still didn’t want you to leave and I hated you even more for that.”

Baekhyun won’t apologize, because it’s not in his nature to do so, but Chanyeol doesn’t care. He’s willing to compromise, to wait a little more. Not yet. For now, the most important thing is getting him out of this house. To take him home.

“Did you have dirty thoughts after our kiss?”

Baekhyun doesn’t answer but he uncrosses his legs and comes even closer, leaning his head on Chanyeol’s shoulder, encased in his warmth. He’s still tense, not used to be so close to someone else, but he also seems to be enjoying Chanyeol’s warmth. He squirms a little, trying to measure Chanyeol’s body. He doesn’t know where to put his hands and it’s a little awkward, not enough to make things uncomfortable for Chanyeol, but enough to make a spike of something hot-soft-overwhelming slash through his chest.

“Did you? Have dirty thoughts about me?” Baekhyun asks, completely unaware of the inner turmoil his closeness is causing. Oh, but this is a question Chanyeol is more than willing to answer.

“Since the first day.” What’s the point of lying about it? “You were the most annoying, pretty little shit I’ve ever seen. I wanted to put you back in your place.”

He said it to challenge Baekhyun, hoping to make him blush, but Baekhyun only laughs in his face. It’s a pretty laugh, loud and long and completely out of place in the house.

“Oh, yes, I figured that much when you kissed me. It was a very dick move, by the way.”

“You’re always a dick, you have no space to complain.” He ignores one last giggle. “But I’ve always wondered, where you aware of what you were doing to me? Because I’m quite sure you spent half of our time together purposefully teasing me.”

“You’ll never know,” says Baekhyun, and this time he does blush but he also laughs again, unrestrained, amused and oh so pretty. The butler waiting at the door even enters the room to see what is going on and leaves silently, wide eyed and surprised. It’s probably the first time he hears Baekhyun laugh. It’s a pity because, in Chanyeol’s humble opinion, Baekhyun’s laugh is beautiful.

“You never answered my question. Did you have dirty thoughts about me?”

Baekhyun bites his lips. “You’re so smug. I won’t fuel your ego, Park Chanyeol.”

It’s Chanyeol’s turn to laugh. He could tell Baekhyun, about all the times he dreamed to push him down, on his knees or on all four, and his imagination went wild. He’s sure Baekhyun’s fantasy wouldn’t be able to keep up with his own. He’s had three years to think about what he would like to do to Baekhyun, and a lot more experience in terms of visual aids. He briefly ponders how much Baekhyun could blush if he were to hear about it.

Or he could tell him other things. He could talk about the line of Baekhyun’s jaw, how much he wants to kiss and bite it. He could talk about Baekhyun’s lips, about the long night he spent imagining what color they could become after a kiss, or he could just kiss them and see it for himself. Lately Chanyeol doesn’t want to push Baekhyun down on his knees. He wants go down on his knees himself and he wants to make Baekhyun go mad with his hands and tongue. He wants to steal every moan, every breath, every cry from his lips. Slowly, sweetly and fondly.

“I would fuel yours, but your mother is talking to your brother on the other side of that door. Dirty talking is out of question.”

Baekhyun blinks and scrunches his nose.

“Where are you?” he asks. “Where is your face?” He finds it with his fingers, but he doesn’t longer too much, suddenly skittish. “One day I want to map your face with my hands, properly. Because I can’t picture in my mind how your face looks like.”

In the background, Baekbom and Mrs. Kim are arguing about Baekhyun’s rights - they won the case for his emancipation against her request to extend her parental rights over him - but their voices disappear at the back of Chanyeol’s mind. There’s only Baekhyun and the secret caught at the corner of his mouth, in the subtle curl of his lips, an almost smile.

He leans towards Chanyeol, all long lashes and pink lips, and whispers. “You’ve asked about dirty thoughts? I dreamed about your mouth on my cock so many times sometimes I think we’ve already done it and it’s a memory.”

Baekhyun lays his trap out in the open because he knows someone will walk on them. It’s inevitable, it’s destiny. And Chanyeol is just a man, not a child in a china shop holding crystal and glass. He’s a man and Baekhyun wants him and he wants Baekhyun. He doesn’t mind falling for this trap.

Baekhyun’s lips are already parted, ready for him, but he still tenses when Chanyeol kisses him. He freezes for a moment only to kiss back immediately, enthusiastic and clumsy and like he was waiting for this for the longest time. They both were.

That’s when the door opens and they hear a scream. Chanyeol only has the time to release Baekhyun’s lips before Mrs. Kim slaps him for the third, and hopefully last, time. 

The hint of laughter still tucked at the corner of Baekhyun’s mouth, hidden behind his slightly red cheeks and in the way his eyelashes flutter softly, is totally worth the pain.

  
**xviii. PAROXYSM**  
(n) sudden outburst of emotion

The roses are sleeping under the snow. Baekhyun shivers in his big coat and stuffs his hands inside the pockets to keep them warm. Chanyeol hugs him from behind, sneaking his hands inside Baekhyun’s pocket to seek the warmth nestled there.

“Will you miss this house?” he asks. He doesn’t ask whether Baekhyun will ever come back because he knows he won’t. He will make sure he never comes back.

“I will miss the garden, probably. I really liked coming here when I was a kid. And I liked it when you brought me here.”

He says it easily. He makes it look easy, but Chanyeol knows how difficult was - still is - for him to be honest about his feelings. Baekhyun is still so reserved, so secretive. So angry. It makes this sudden openness sound suspicious.

It must be the garden, he thinks. It makes Baekhyun feel at ease. It was the same in the past. Baekhyun was the most honest during their walks among the roses.

“You told me you liked roses before I left, do you remember? Queen Alexandra or something.”

“Or something,” says Baekhyun with a sigh. “There was one here, but when they told me I was going to become blind I had it removed. I didn’t want one if I couldn’t see it.”

“There’s a rose festival in Seoul in May. We could go together.”

Baekhyun tenses in Chanyeol’s arms so violently Chanyeol almost takes a step back, but his fingers are still intertwined with Baekhyun’s inside the pocket so they only wobble together.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, trying to free Baekhyun from his hold and take a step back before they both fall. Baekhyun’s hand finds one of Chanyeol’s sleeves and keeps him from stepping away.

“Do you really think we’ll still be together in five months?” he asks.

“Why wouldn’t we be?”

Baekhyun laughs, sour and cold, like the wind coming from the woods.

“Everyone leaves me.”

“I thought we were over this, Baekhyun.”

“You can be over it, Chanyeol, because you can leave... You can do whatever you want. But I can’t, and I will have to live with my useless self for the rest of my life, wondering when I’ll end up alone.”

It feels like déjà vu. They had a similar conversation a long time ago, right here, among the roses. But the sun was shining back then and the roses were in bloom, and Baekhyun was groomed and pale and perfect, his mouth soft and his tongue sharp. Now his hair is messy, his nose is red and his lips are cracked from the cold, but Chanyeol knows what they taste like and he’d never go back.

“Sometimes people will leave you, in order to live their lives. But the ones who really love you will always come back. Your brother came back. _I came back._ “

“You didn’t come back, I went to find you!” he says, childish and petulant, but Chanyeol shakes his head.

“But I’m here! Isn’t that what matters? You can find me again if I leave, or you could come with me the next time. Or you can keep me from leaving, because I know you can keep me from leaving... That’s what you’ve been doing since the first time we met.”

“It didn’t work so well,” whispers Baekhyun.

“I think it worked quite well, or I really wouldn’t be here.”

Baekhyun is angry, like he always is when he feels like he’s lost an argument and he doesn’t know how to turn the tables on Chanyeol. He leaves Chanyeol’s hand, turns his back to him and starts walking in a random direction, stomping on the snow as hard as he can. Chanyeol sighs and catches him before he can walk into a frozen bush.

“I’m not a wizard, Baekhyun. I can’t predict the future and tell you that... this thing between us will be amazing and that we’ll always be happy. I can’t even guarantee it’ll last,” - oh, but he’s ready to do his best to make it last - “but I can tell you what happens if you don’t believe in it, not even a little bit.”

“And what will happen?” asks Baekhyun.

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We won’t break up because we’ll never have been together. I won’t leave you because I won’t have been yours, not even for a moment. No broken heart, no breakup. Nothing at all.”

He takes a step closer, traces Baekhyun’s lips with his fingers and feels them shake, maybe in cold, maybe in outrage. He tries his luck.

“What do you want, Baekhyun?”

“I want you to stay with me, always.”

What a kid, Byun Baekhyun. Chanyeol touches Baekhyun’s lips, a fleeting and light touch, and wonders how long it takes Baekhyun to realize it’s his fingers and not his mouth. He wonders whether Baekhyun thinks Chanyeol is going to kiss him, only to feel disappointed afterwards.  
Baekhyun wants with the levity of a kid. He wants Chanyeol’s _always_ , Chanyeol’s _forever_ , Chanyeol’s _everything_. His love is intense as much as it’s naive. It would’ve been easy to fool him back then, it would be even easier now. Chanyeol is a good liar. But he can’t lie to Baekhyun.

“I won’t always be with you, I can’t promise that. But while we’re together, I’ll make it worth it. For every time I leave, every time we fight and every time I hurt you. I’ll give you the most of me, I’ll give you more than I’ve ever given everyone else. Is that enough?”

Baekhyun doesn’t know how to compromise. He wants everything and he always gets nothing, and his nothing is sharp and thin and dark and hurts him more than he can tell. No one has ever taken their time to teach him how to pick his battles and how to choose his victories, what to give up in order to gain something more important. But Chanyeol has been working for this. He could’ve had Baekhyun one year ago, and he would’ve had all of him, because Baekhyun wants everything but gives everything back. But Chanyeol doesn’t want everything. No one can own a person like a toy. If you want that, you’re only setting yourself up for failure and Chanyeol doesn’t fail. Chanyeol is a winner.

The sun is rising. It’s pale and shy. A cold winter morning. Baekhyun blinks. He can’t see colors and he can’t see shapes but he can see the light. He can’t see Chanyeol, but he can touch him, his hands on Chanyeol’s face, on his nose, his cheekbones, his lips. His hands on Chanyeol’s forehead, on the side of his face, his ears, his jaw. He finds Chanyeol’s dimple and smiles and Chanyeol has to drag him closer, one hand at the back of his head to tilt his face upwards, one hands curled around his hip to keep him there.

Baekhyun kisses Chanyeol, hesitant, unsure and insistent at the same time, his lips barely parted. He doesn’t say it’s enough, he doesn’t say he loves Chanyeol and he doesn’t say he wants to try this... whatever it is. But he kisses Chanyeol and sighs into the kiss and steps closer and Chanyeol doesn’t care if it’s not perfect, if it’s not everything. It’s still an answer. It’s a compromise he’s willing to accept.

  
**xix. EPIGONE**  
(n) lesser imitator of a renowned artist

Park Chanyeol is smart. He’s always been smart, among many other things, since he was a kid. Aforementioned many other things may include being possessive and selfish (like children born in wealth often are), being controlling, being stubborn to a fault once he’s set on a goal and willing to bend, never break, until he’s crouching on the ground in order to reach it. Chanyeol has no pride, for pride is an obstacle, a wall between Chanyeol and something he wants. Pride is a weakness.

Pride is President Park’s capital sin, a weakness Chanyeol can’t forgive, not even in his father. When he was sixteen, Chanyeol ran away from home. He was caught six hours later by one of his father’s bodyguards, and the man asked him what his problem was.

“Do they mistreat you?”

“Not really,” young Chanyeol answered. “But I can’t do what I want.”

The man didn’t understand. It’s difficult to understand when you’re a slave of circumstances, when you can only wish in a better condition but you’d rather envy others than rise and do something about it. The man thought Chanyeol was just a spoiled kid who had everything and wanted even more, but Chanyeol didn’t want _more_. He wanted something different. He wanted to choose his own path, without his father interfering. He wanted to prove he could succeed on his own. He didn’t want to be a slave of circumstances, but to make his own destiny.

When he was nineteen, Chanyeol left his home, to show himself, his family and the world that he didn’t need any help. That he could be better, brighter, stronger, even on his own. He didn’t run away, he simply left. And made his own history.

“You really think you’re something else, don’t you Park Chanyeol?”

The door that leads to the roof is usually locked, but the concierge is extremely lenient towards Chanyeol. He finds really remarkable that a nice young man like him spends so much time looking out for a blind friend and he’s willing to give him the key when Chanyeol needs a gush of fresh air and a quiet, deserted place where he can smoke in peace and think about what to do with Baekhyun.  
Apparently, he’s not the only one who gets the same privilege.

Byun Baekbom smokes cigars, not because he likes them but because they give him a more experienced look. They make him look sharper. Not the kind of sharpness Baekhyun owns, crystal thin and with razor edges, but the sharpness of a combat knife, solid and heavy.

“I am something else,” answers Chanyeol, simply. He takes his lighter out and lights Baekbom’s cigar. “How is he?”

“Officially sleeping. Unofficially praying I don’t throw you off this building. I don’t like when people play with what is mine.”

Chanyeol wishes he didn’t understand Baekbom so deeply, but he does. They’re the same, the both of them. Both brilliant, both precocious rascals, both left their home to find freedom somewhere else. Both fiercely jealous, very territorial, unwilling to share. Too similar. Only the heavens, and maybe Byun Baekhyun, know how they managed not to jump at each other’s throats in the last year.

“I’m not playing and Baekhyun isn’t yours.”

“He’s my brother. He was already mine before you were born. Don’t forget, Park Chanyeol, that I led you to my brother and I could drive him away from you if I wanted.”

“But you don’t want. If you did, you would’ve already done it.”

Baekbom’s nostrils flare and for a moment he looks young - for a moment he looks like Baekhyun - but it’s fleeting and gone before Chanyeol can make something out of it. What remains is the shark, the boy who left home to make a new and better destiny for himself, just like Chanyeol, the man who struggled to find his own place in the world without a name that felt like a chain around his neck, just like Chanyeol. The man who loves Baekhyun. Just like Chanyeol.

“We are similar, you and I,” says Chanyeol, as he takes a long drag.

“Do you think so?” Baekbom blows smoke towards the star. “To be honest, it might even be true, but there’s a big difference between us.”

“And in what, if I may ask, we are different?”

Byun Baekbom smiles, with many teeth ready to tear Chanyeol apart. He won’t do it, because he loves his little brother and his little brother loves Chanyeol. But that doesn’t mean he has to like it. (In that, too, they are similar.)

“I don’t need to tell you how much I’m going to make you suffer if something happens to him, right?” He doesn’t sound threatening at all but Chanyeol still feels a chill in his back.

“I have a faint idea,” he replies, trying to keep a cool tone.

“I don’t like you, Chanyeol. I don’t know if my brother has realized how sly you are. You pretended to be a good friend until now and turned the tables on him at the last moment, when you were sure he liked you enough not to run away. My brother can be exceptionally smart sometimes, but he’s also incredibly naive. I, on the other hand, have no problem with recognizing a snake when I see one.”

“It takes one to find another, after all.”

They smoke in silence, until Baekbom’s cigar is only a stub and Chanyeol is lighting is second cigarette.

“Don’t hurt my brother or I’ll hurt you,” he says. This time he does sound threatening.

“I won’t.”

It’s not an empty promise. Chanyeol likes Baekhyun. He’s spent an entire year seducing him. Hurting Baekhyun is the last thing he wants, especially now that Baekhyun has agreed to go out with him. And Baekbom knows, of course. He would have never let Baekhyun get close to Chanyeol if he had thought otherwise. He will never outright approve of Chanyeol, but the fact that he doesn’t disapprove either shows that, at least, he thinks Chanyeol can take care of his brother.

“Wasn’t this what you wanted? To make your brother happy?

For a moment, Chanyeol wonders whether Baekbom had planned this too. That all of this, even Chanyeol’s feelings, are only part of a more elaborate plan he has devised to make his brother happy. It sounds impossible, but also possible.

Baekbom snorts and turns around to leave first, without giving a clear answer. Chanyeol stops him before he can close the door.

“You never told me in what we are different,” he calls.

Byun Baekbom smiles.

“You’re good at this game, but I am way better than you.”

  
**xx. HEBETUDE**  
(n) lethargy  


Baekhyun’s lips are cold, his hands are even colder. He stuffs them in Chanyeol’s pockets, seeking warmth, and sighs in contentment when Chanyeol wraps him in a warm hug. The kettle whistles, but Baekhyun pouts and doesn’t let him go.

“The tea can wait,” he says, squirming closer to snuggle with Chanyeol.

“The tea would make you warm.”

Baekhyun shakes his head and adjusts the blanket around their bodies.

“It’s warm here, if you move it’ll be cold again.” He shivers at the thought.

“You don’t cope well with cold, do you?” asks Chanyeol, one part exasperated and two parts amused.

“Not really,” mumbles Baekhyun. “My hands and feet especially. In the other house I couldn’t spend more than ten minutes without socks.”

He’s not wearing socks right now and his naked feet are cold against Chanyeol’s leg. But this apartment is warmer than Mrs. Kim’s old colonial house at the foot of the mountain.

“Your feet are frozen. I will fetch the tea,” says Chanyeol. Disentangling himself from Baekhyun’s hug turns out to be pretty difficult.

“Stay here, I said!” hisses Baekhyun.

“Are you kidding me? Your brother will have my balls on a silver platter if I allow you to fall sick, I’m not-”

Baekhyun kisses him. Not to shut him up - it’s not like he would’ve listened to Chanyeol’s complaints anyway - but simply because he can and he wants to. It’s one of those gratuitous, spontaneous kisses that tell more about Baekhyun’s feelings than his words ever will.

“You can’t distract me forever,” says Chanyeol in the pauses between kisses.

Baekhyun laughs against his lips and when he licks them, he licks Chanyeol’s too.

“You’re a tiny wicked thing, you know that?” he says.

“Stay here, with me, and I’ll kiss you again,” replies the little tease.

Chanyeol scoffs. It’s not like he can’t kiss Baekhyun himself, and whenever he wants too, but there’s something terribly endearing in the way Baekhyun is slowly starting to take control when they’re together.

“Let me go get the tea and I’ll kiss you instead.”

Baekhyun pouts and hides his head in the crook of Chanyeol’s neck. Chanyeol stays because Baekhyun might be pushy and selfish, but he smiles the brightest when Chanyeol plays along with him. Chanyeol stays for the magic of being able to hold Baekhyun, to kiss him slowly, how much he wants, whenever he wants, as deeply as he wants.

The room is silent, the city is hidden under a veil of snow. Baekhyun’s feet are cold and his laugh is warm. His lips are sweet. He falls asleep on Chanyeol’s chest, holding him tight, and Chanyeol finds himself dozing off too, his fingers still carded in Baekhyun’s hair.

The screen of his phone lights up with an incoming message from Sunyoung saying she’ll come over after dinner. Chanyeol won’t be there to see her. He has a _hweshik_ and he can’t bail out. The message piles under two mails from Baekhyun’s brother and one from Chanyeol’s father’s secretary.

Chanyeol sighs and disentangles himself from Baekhyun’s hold, trying not to wake up the sleeping boy. It’s useless. When he comes back, holding a mug of already lukewarm tea, Baekhyun is sitting on the couch, wrapped in the blanket and looking quite disgruntled.

“You have to leave already?”

“I can’t be late, I’m the rookie there. Gotta make myself a name.”

Baekhyun snorts. “Just make sure you don’t drink too much.”

“You nag so much. One day, when I won’t be the last newcomer, I’ll make sure to bring you along and introduce you to the rest of the staff.”

Baekhyun’s lips curl and his shoulders stiffen, like every other time Chanyeol mentions the possibility of them being still together in a not so distant future.

“Me? I wouldn’t want to embarrass you. I can’t even eat on my own, let alone hold my ground at a _hweshik_.”

Chanyeol wants to protest, but his phone rings obnoxiously.

He taps Baekhyun’s shoulder to get his attention and leaves a quick kiss at the corner of his mouth.  
“See you tomorrow,” says Baekhyun, before Chanyeol can close the door and leave.

“See you tomorrow.”

  
**xxi. DEGUST**  
(v) taste something carefully to appreciate it fully

The city spreads its wings in the night like a swan. It has feathers made of light and dirt, of pollution and rain and shiny billboards where the latest hot trend actress or singer promotes makeup and jewels and cars. It throbs in colors and cries in traffic sounds and never ever sleeps. It breathes when it snows.

Chanyeol opens his mouth and tastes night and cold and the world shakes in multicolor around him, every sound reaching his ears as if it’s coming from the farthest distance. Someone says something about a cab and before Chanyeol can begin to process the words he’s being shoved inside one in a whirlwind of colors.

“We need an address, kid,” the driver says, looking back and forth between Chanyeol and someone outside.

“Park?” 

Chanyeol blinks, focusing on the pretty face of Im Yoona from the Overseas Department. She snaps her pretty, long fingers in front of Chanyeol’s face to wake him up from his alcohol-induced haze. He takes out his wallet, not without a lot of effort, and produces a card from it. Im Yoona takes it and looks at the name, curious. “Are you sure? This is not your name,” she says, but Chanyeol just nods. His head is spinning so hard he can barely see her anymore

“Just get me there,” he says, making an effort to spell every word right from how much his head is spinning. She slams the car door shut and waves him off with a final giggle. “See you tomorrow at work, kid... If you’re not too hungover.”

The ride to Baekhyun’s place is not long enough for him to sober up and, when the cab finally stops, he’s still more wasted than coherent. His head feels lightheaded, but his body is so heavy and uncooperative. Snowflakes dance around him, swallowing every other sound.

When Baekhyun opens the door, Chanyeol literally crashes at his feet. 

There’s a moment of silence as Baekhyun just stands there, unable to process what is happening. “I’m on the floor,” provides Chanyeol.

“Are you drunk?”

“No way, Sherlock, what gave me away?”

“You’re smelling like a liquor shop, you fell on my doormat and when you rang the bell and I asked who the fuck it was at this time of the night you said _the man of your life_. Pick one. Also, are you a stupid drunk?”

Chanyeol drags himself inside and closes the door. “I’m always stupid, not only when I’m drunk.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re aware.”

“You’re cute when you’re pretending you’re not worried about me.”

Baekhyun looks like he wants to kick him out of spite but in the end he just sighs and disappears, leaving Chanyeol alone at the entrance as he tries to get rid of his shoes and fails miserably. When Baekhyun comes back, there’s a mug of warm coffee in his hands. It’s cheap instant coffee, the kind people like Mrs. Kim or Chanyeol’s father have probably never tasted in their entire life, the only kind Baekhyun knows how to make, but it’s still coffee, and Chanyeol has never felt more grateful in his life.

Baekhyun sets the mug down, so that Chanyeol can pick it up himself. He sits on the pristine floor.

“So I guess the _hweshik_ went well.”

“Of course it did! They all adore me,” mutters Chanyeol, taking a sip of the too warm beverage. The coffee burns his tongue and he sticks his out, not caring that he looks like a dog, Baekhyun can’t see him. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! Too hot!” he hisses, biting back a curse.

Baekhyun bites his bottom lip to hide his laugh but it doesn’t work. “How could they not? You’re really adorable.”

Chanyeol shakes his head and tries to get up to set the mug on the coffee table but he feels like he could throw up and he sits back, groaning.

“What is happening? Are you hurt?”

“I’m just drunk, don’t mind me. Nausea. Headache. Also eye-hand coordination is really lacking at the moment. If only the world would stop...”

He forgets how he wanted to end the sentence. He forgets how to speak altogether. When he opens his eyes, the world has already stopped. There’s only Baekhyun, kneeling in front of him, moving his hands on the floor slowly until he finds Chanyeol. Baekhyun and the snow falling against the glass door, melting against it slowly, leaving trails of frozen tears.

Baekhyun follows the outline of Chanyeol’s arm to his shoulder, his neck, until he reaches his face, like he always does when he wants to _see_ Chanyeol. Feeling with his fingers is the closest he can get to watching Chanyeol’s expressions. Baekhyun wishes he could see so much, but sometimes Chanyeol is glad he can’t see what kind of stupid expression he’s making. Just one look, and Baekhyun would be able to see through the web of lies Chanyeol has constructed. Just one look and Baekhyun would realize how much Chanyeol is stupidly in love, how much he needs Baekhyun to need him, just like a fool who pretends he’s not interested but he’s dying for a drop of love.

When Baekhyun leans closer, Chanyeol stops breathing. His lips are parted and his brow furrowed. He looks focused, as if he’s trying to solve a riddle. He looks beautiful, the kind of beauty that hits you like an arrow, fast and precise and heartbreaking. The kind of beauty Chanyeol fell in love with.

Chanyeol wants to remember this moment tomorrow, the soft lines of Baekhyun’s face, the hair falling in front of his eyes, ruffled and messy, making him look so much younger. He can’t look for love in Baekhyun’s eyes, but he can read the telltale signs of it on his face. The way he bites the inside of his cheek, the bright red flushing his ears and the tiny, almost imperceptible tremor in his fingers as they touch Chanyeol’s thighs. Maybe he’s fooling himself, maybe he’s just seeing things through the hazy spectacles of booze, but sometimes he thinks Baekhyun might really love him. And it’s enough.

“Come on, let’s get you to bed,” Baekhyun says, interrupting Chanyeol’s small revelation, his voice soft and choked. Chanyeol resists, just for a moment. His limbs are too heavy, but when Baekhyun pulls him up they feel weightless and he finds himself following the touch, crawling on his knees and then up on his feet.

He doesn’t realize what is happening until they collapse together on the bed, and only then reality catches up with him. He can feel it, in the way his skin tingles against Baekhyun’s, both numb and hyperaware of Baekhyun’s presence. Electric stimuli travel through his body, but the only thing that reaches his brain is the need to touch Baekhyun, to be all over him, to claim and claim _and claim_.

He gets up suddenly, ignoring the way his head pounds and Baekhyun’s surprised, soft gasp.

“I’m not...” he says. Baekhyun eyes him curiously and, again, he feels his breath itch in his throat. He tries again. “Maybe it’s better if I sleep on the floor. I’m not sure I’ll be able to control myself.”

“Stay.”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“You can barely walk straight, I can’t really picture you assaulting me while I sleep.”

No, Chanyeol would never. But he’s a man and he’s so drunk, there’s no way he’s going to keep his hands for himself, not when Baekhyun is so close, so warm and soft, so similar to the dream Chanyeol wakes up to almost every morning with a hand on his dick and one on his mouth, choking his moans against his fist.

“Yes, but… I don’t want to invade your personal space?”

It’s not like he doesn’t want to touch Baekhyun - oh, he wants to do that a little too much - but he has to be careful, he has to be patient. It took months of constant, careful touches to ease Baekhyun into accepting physical contact as something normal, until he stopped getting startled because of it. Now he welcomes Chanyeol’s touch instead of feeling threatened, but Chanyeol didn’t plan carefully, waited and bid his time and calculated every move only to fuck up during a single moment of weakness and have to start over again. 

“Baekhyun, I’m not kidding, please...”

“I’m not kidding either. You’re my boyfriend. What’s wrong with sleeping together? I just want you to stay.”

Chanyeol feels rage bubble in his chest, annoying, inopportune and completely unmotivated. His control is already slipping and words he has thought about but never wanted to say pile up in his mouth, ready to run away. He’s going to regret this tomorrow, for sure.

“You can’t even imagine how difficult it is, to have everything you want at hand’s reach and not being able to touch it,” he says, before he can stop himself.

“Of course I can’t,” answers Baekhyun, his voice cold and acuminate like the tip of a needle, and Chanyeol realizes, now, through the veil of alcohol still blurring his mind, how much he’s just fucked up. “I can’t even imagine. It’s not like it doesn’t happen to me every day. I have everything I want at hand’s reach. I just have to extend my hand to take it, you know? But I can’t see it. I can’t see anything Chanyeol.”

Baekhyun scoots even closer, dangerously close.

“I can only turn towards your voice. I have to make up your face in my mind and draw expressions on you myself, because I can’t. I can’t see you, Chanyeol. I’ve never seen your face and I never will. I’ll never see the face of the person I love, how do you think that makes me feel?”

“Baekhyun, I’m sorry. I didn’t-”

“Are you really sorry? Because I am. I wish we could be just like any other normal couple. I wish you could take me to company dinners and introduce me to your coworkers someday. I wish I could hug you anytime I want instead of wondering hopelessly whether you’re really there or I’m just making you up in my mind. I know it’s my fault, it’s my disability and my burden, but I still wish you’d reach out for me when I can’t do it for you.”

Chanyeol feels awfully sobered up now. And cold. Baekhyun must be feeling cold too. He reaches for Baekhyun’s wrist and puts Baekhyun’s hand, his graceful, pretty hand, on his chest. Baekhyun slowly curls his fingers around the collar of Chanyeol’s shirt to pull him back down with him on the bed.

They wait, in silence. Chanyeol picks his words with all the care in the world, hoping it’ll be enough.

“It’s just... You can’t see me. You can’t see when I’m going to touch you. Doesn’t it make you uncomfortable?”

He regrets talking the moment the last word is out of his mouth. In his brain, all these worries made sense, but here in the open his words feel naked, too laid out and exposed. Baekhyun doesn’t like when his weaknesses are pointed out. He likes even less when people treat him differently because of them, and this... Chanyeol confessing something like this...

He keeps quiet, waiting for the explosion... That doesn’t happen. Or, better, it happens, but not in the way Chanyeol was expecting.

Baekhyun gets up, slowly walks towards the wall, and switches off the lights. He has no problem with coming back to the bed, even in total darkness.

Chanyeol hears the rustle of the covers, feels the bed dipping with Baekhyun’s added weight, he holds his breath.

Baekhyun doesn’t ask for permission. He finds his wrist, his arm, shoulder, his neck. His fingers find their way across Chanyeol’s face, his cheekbones, his jaw, they find their way home to his lips.  
Baekhyun kisses like he lives, spoiled and selfish and terribly endearing. Baekhyun kisses like he lives, methodically and slowly, only apparently unsure. Baekhyun kisses like he lives, giving everything and asking everything back, challenging and angry and soft, but in his own biting way. Baekhyun leaves Chanyeol breathless and bare, but he bares himself for Chanyeol too. His kisses aren’t compromises, not like Chanyeol’s. Baekhyun’s kisses are instinctive and fearless.

When he lets go, the darkness swallows Chanyeol’s broken sigh. The darkness swallows the fire coursing through his veins. Baekhyun’s touch on his neck and wrist sings, Baekhyun’s taste on his lips is an echo of his laugh.

“Did it make you uncomfortable?” he asks, in a murmur.

“Not really.”

“Even if you couldn’t see me?”

“I see where you’re trying to go but...”

“No buts, Park Chanyeol. I have been following your rules. I am trying. To compromise, to grow up, to be the person you want me to be.”

And he is trying. Baekhyun is doing his best, Chanyeol can see it. He’s trying and succeeding and maybe Chanyeol was the blind one for never noticing it.

“I hate my condition. I hate having to rely on someone else in order to do everything. I hate that I can’t even live alone on my own and that I need someone to help me doing even the simplest tasks. There was a time I thought I would die without feeling normal again, not even once in my life.” His voice is thin, but firm. It doesn’t shake. “I want to feel normal. I want you to hug me. Someday, I want to have sex with you. I know you want it too, so stop treating me like I’d break if you so much as touched me. Aren’t we in a relationship?”

“You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?” he asks, with a groan.

“I can’t help but thinking about it every time. I feel like, if I let you do everything on your own, if I let you decide for me too, one day you’ll just get tired of me. I have to be proactive!”

Chanyeol can’t help but to feel a little childish right now. Tomorrow he will blame alcohol for this, but for tonight he can only admit he was a childish asshole and Baekhyun, probably for the first time in one of their arguments, was the better person.

“It was pretty insensitive of me, to say what I said.”

Baekhyun nods. “Yes, it was. We say many insensitive things, the both of us. But you don’t have to restrain yourself so much with me. I’m not a doll. I’m your boyfriend. And it’s not like I don’t have a strong personality. If I don’t like something you do, I will tell you. If you want to fight, I can fight back.”

Chanyeol snorts. Of course Baekhyun can fight back, he’s always known that. And he’s always clear enough in voicing his complaints, there’s no risk he’ll let Chanyeol manhandle him in way he doesn’t like.

But he really doesn’t know where this Baekhyun is coming from. He spends most of his time with him and he still failed to notice Baekhyun was changing, though this sly little shit did everything right under his nose. It makes him feel a little annoyed. His right hand sneaks under the covers, to curl around Baekhyun’s hip, feeling the warmth through the fabric of his shirt, making him squirm.

“When did you grow up so much?” Chanyeol whine. Baekhyun snorts, all smug and satisfied, and Chanyeol does something he’s never done - because boundaries and personal space and Baekhyun being more sensitive than anyone else, but Baekhyun told him he could touch, didn’t he? He gathers his courage and pinches him. Hard. Baekhyun screams.

“What was that for?”

“For acting so wise with me!”

Baekhyun tries to push him away but they are too tangled between the covers and the sheets and he fails miserably. He still manages to elbow Chanyeol’s side.

“You’re not a stupid drunk, you’re a mean drunk!”

“I’m a horny drunk, and you still asked me to stay with you tonight. What does that make you?”

Baekhyun sighs. He rolls on his side, until his forehead is touching Chanyeol’s.

“You’re a chatty drunk. Go to sleep!”

Chanyeol will, in a few minutes. But now, since he has received official permission - although it sounded more like an official complaint - he wraps his arms around Baekhyun’s shoulders and draws him back until he’s nestled on his chest, his nose cold against Chanyeol’s collarbone.

“Is this the worst you can do?” whispers Baekhyun, the words wet and humid on Chanyeol’s chest. 

Chanyeol pulls him even closer, until he’s sure Baekhyun can feel the hardness against his leg, unmistakable, blatant and bold. He can feel the itch in Baekhyun’s breath, the way he jolts, the way he tenses and relaxes and the way he starts to grow too, nestled between their bodies.

He curls one hand around Baekhyun’s neck, pulls his face upwards for a quick kiss on his nose. Baekhyun sighs at the sudden movement, hyperaware of their closeness, feeling the friction between them.

Chanyeol smiles sourly, hoping Baekhyun is feeling at least a little of the frustration he’s feeling. He really, really hopes he doesn’t end up humping Baekhyun in his sleep tomorrow morning.

“Goodnight, Baekhyun.”

  
**xxii. ACEDIA**  
(n) laziness, indifference

It’s still too cold for snow in February. The streets are frozen and packed. The sky is grey with smoke and damp fog. The arrival of a new intern called Soojung signals the end of Chanyeol’s life as the rookie of the office. He parties with his coworkers to celebrate his new contract and his boss makes him drink so much he ends up throwing up at the side of the streets and sending Baekhyun drunken covers of his favorite pop songs when he comes back home.

Baekhyun knocks at his door the morning after, when Chanyeol is still sleeping. Jongdae opens the door for him and they sit together in the living room in front of _sageuk_ drama reruns while they wait for Chanyeol to wake up. When he finally emerges from his room, ruffled and tired, with puffy eyes, blotched nose and the taste of garbage in his mouth, he finds them sitting together on the couch, talking in hushed tones about resilience in Korean architecture and listening to the dramatic violins of a fighting scene between the two main protagonists.

Chanyeol is happy Baekhyun can’t see him now, because he must be a mess if even Jongdae makes a vaguely disgusted face when he sees him appear.

“Your boyfriend,” he says to Baekhyun, “just entered this room in nothing but yesterday’s underwear and his ugly face.”

Baekhyun pouts. “Is he hot?”

Jongdae thinks about it, laughing at Chanyeol’s attempt to threaten him into saying yes. “Just so you know, he’s totally waving a knife at me to make me say yes.”

“It’s a fruit knife, it can’t cut anything. Answer the question!” calls Chanyeol from the kitchen.

Jongdae whispers something in Baekhyun’s ears, eliciting a fit of giggles. Chanyeol frowns.

“Traitors, all of you. Have you already eaten, Baekhyun?” At his negative answer, he starts collecting food from the fridge and cabinet. “Well then, kimchi spaghetti for two? What do you think, Jongdae? Are you one of us?”

“Sorry, I have to leave in like ten minutes. A date with Joohyun awaits me.” He ruffles Baekhyun’s hair. “See you later, kiddo. Bye, Yeol.”

The door closes behind him and Baekhyun slumps on the couch, spreading his arms and legs wide like a starfish.

“Do you think he knows we were actually born in the same year?” he muses.

“I think he just likes to patronize you because he thinks you’re cute.”

“Am I not?” Baekhyun pretends to do aegyo and it’s very cute. Chanyeol is never telling him how much he finds it cute.

“No, you’re a real menace.” He tastes the soup. “Oi, can you come here at the counter and taste the soup for me?”

Baekhyun gets close with hesitant steps, wary of the sound of the gas stove. Chanyeol keeps him still with a hand curled around his neck and puts the wooden spoon in his hand with the other, blowing over it to cool the sauce.

“How is it?” he says, after Baekhyun has had a taste. His mind is a little fuzzy, a fuzziness that has little to do with sleep and a lot to do with the way Baekhyun’s tongue darts outside his mouth to lick the sauce from the spoon.

“The spiciness is just fine,” says Baekhyun, and his voice is low and a little raspy. He tries to take a step back, hyperaware of Chanyeol’s closeness, but the hand around his neck keeps him there.

“Do you want to come back to bed?” asks Chanyeol.

“What about lunch?”

“I think spaghetti can wait. It’s cold and I’m still sleepy. The sauce is ready, we just have to add the pasta later,” he adds, hoping to convince Baekhyun.

Baekhyun scrunches his nose and finally gives up when Chanyeol lands a kiss on the tip of his nose. 

“Come on, Baekhyun-ah,” he says, drawling the final syllable. Baekhyun eyes him warily.

It’s not like Chanyeol doesn’t have hidden agenda in bringing Baekhyun into his own bed. There’s a lot to fantasize about his boyfriend panting under him, on his bed, fisting his sheets while Chanyeol kisses him. But it’s morning and Baekhyun feels extremely skittish and self-conscious during the morning.

Sometimes, at night, when he’s feeling toasty warm, relaxed and careless after a few glasses of beer, not quite tipsy yet but loose and incredibly vocal, Baekhyun lets Chanyeol’s hands wander under his shirt and inside his pants. He cants his hips up with broken, staccato cries when Chanyeol’s mouth closes around a nipple and pulls Chanyeol down for a kiss when he feels he’s coming. They never went further than mutual handjobs, but Chanyeol cherishes any and every scrap of intimacy with Baekhyun he can get. 

The morning after, Baekhyun is always cold and awkward, hyperaware of Chanyeol’s presence and overreacting at the slightest touch. Chanyeol has learnt when to take his chances and when to let it go, and this morning he definitely needs to let go before Baekhyun bites him like a kitten too tired of being coddled by a greedy child.

“I just want to sleep and cuddle in bed, I promise,” he says, and smiles wide when Baekhyun agrees to follow him into the bedroom, kicks his shoes and socks away and slips under the duvet to burrow his nose in Chanyeol’s throat, shivering in the cold of the lazy February morning.

Chanyeol could fall asleep again like this, his fingers in Baekhyun’s hair and Baekhyun’s hands on his chest, but Baekhyun doesn’t feel sleepy at all so they end up talking a lot. About the drama Jongdae was watching with Chanyeol, about Baekhyun’s school, about Chanyeol still being the rookie at work, about Jongdae’s new girlfriend and Baekbom’s last ex and Seohyun’s possible crush on Baekbom himself. (Chanyeol says it’s impossible, he would’ve noticed, Baekhyun just scoffs and dares him to dye his hair silver if he’s wrong. Chanyeol _really_ hopes he’s not wrong, because he doesn’t know how to pull silver hair and avoid being fired.)

They talk about Baekhyun getting a guide dog in the future.

“If it’s female, you should call her Sandara.”

“I’m not going to call my guide dog like your celebrity crush. Chanyeol.” Baekhyun puffs his cheeks and spreads his arms on the bed, almost slapping Chanyeol. “I’m not even going to get a dog.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t really take good care of a dog. I can barely take care of myself. What if it starves because of me?”

“Seohyun is your maid, couldn’t she help you?”

“She’s terrified of dogs. And she already has to take care of me, how can I burden her even more?”

_I could live with you._ The words linger at the tip of Chanyeol’s tongue, on a knife edge. But it’s too soon. Their relationship is still fragile, like a winter cloud ready to disappear into a snowstorm, leaving behind a clear sky and a white veil covering everything. It’s still too soon, but...

“I’ve always wanted a dog,” says Chanyeol. “But this apartment is too small and Jongdae is allergic to dogs. But maybe in the future, when I’ll live in a bigger house, I’ll have enough space to raise one or two.”

He doesn’t say he wants a house big enough for him and Baekhyun because Baekhyun snorts against the pillow and rolls towards Chanyeol.

“I’d like to call my dog Mongryong,” he says. “For future reference.”

Communication, what a wonderful thing. Communicating with Baekhyun is difficult, like talking to someone in another planet. Chanyeol sends short messages and hopes they don’t get lost in deep space. He waits patiently for Baekhyun’s answer to come back. It’s slow and cumbersome, like many things in deep space are, but it’s the only way and he’ll take his chance. It’s worth it.

Now it’s Baekhyun’s turn to send a message. Chanyeol can feel something is off with him, so he waits and waits. Until Baekhyun stirs and mumbles softly.

“I’ve been offered a job. As a braille teacher. At the school.”

Chanyeol waits for him to elaborate.

“One of their instructors left and I know braille so they thought... It was nice of them. I mean, it’s not like I need money, but still. It was nice.”

“Do you want to accept it?”

Baekhyun rolls away from him, as if physical contact is suddenly impossible to endure. It’s his automatic reaction to a stressful situation and Chanyeol knows it’s normal, but it always hurts a bit when his boyfriend flees from his touch.

He resists the urge to pull him back and gives him space instead. _I’m here,_ he wants to say. _Don’t make this more difficult than it already is._ But Baekhyun is already retiring in his faraway planet, in his private little space.

“I should, but I don’t want to,” he says in the end, low, like he’s ashamed.

“Why do you think you should?”

“Because it would be a good opportunity to talk to people, make new friends. Because then I wouldn’t have to feel so useless all the time. Everyone is doing something but I’m... I’m just useless.”

“Do you want to be useful?”

“Not really? It’s difficult to explain. I’ve never done something in my life. I don’t know how it feels to do something in my life. I don’t want to make that kind of effort. I don’t want to do anything, but I feel ashamed.”

Chanyeol touches Baekhyun’s neck, slowly, almost shyly. Baekhyun doesn’t push him away. He just scoots a little closer.

“I don’t have all the answers, Baekhyun. I don’t want to give you the wrong advice.”

“I don’t know if I want advices.” He turns and exposes more neck to Chanyeol’s hand, melting under his fingers.

“You don’t have to take a decision now,” he says, low like a whisper. “About the job, I mean.”

Chanyeol doesn’t have an answer for Baekhyun. His goals have always been clear for him, shining brightly in front of his eyes, close enough to touch. Chanyeol knows what he wants and he’s ready to do anything to get it. Baekhyun doesn’t know what he wants, doesn’t know how to get it. He doesn’t know how far he’d go to get it.

“Sometimes I miss the cage,” Baekhyun says. “It was a miserable life, but I didn’t have to make any choices.”

Chanyeol doesn’t understand how choices can be scary. How freedom could be scary. Both he and Baekhyun were able to leave their lives, their houses, their families, to chase this freedom, but then why is Baekhyun so afraid? What is he afraid of? The only limit is the sky, but he’s standing at the edge of the precipice, too afraid he’ll fall if he tries to jump, too scared to fly.

“Refusing to take a decision is in itself a decision,” he says, deciding he doesn’t care if Baekhyun will get mad. 

“I told you I didn’t want advices.”

“I didn’t give you any. I just stated a truth.”

After that answer, they fight. Baekhyun storms away in a hurry after that. He calls the driver and slams the door in Chanyeol’s face when he tries to take him downstairs.

He’ll be angry for a while, probably, but Chanyeol can be patient. He knows Baekhyun will mull over what he said. He’ll chew every single word and he’ll digest them slowly. Chanyeol’s messages always take a long time to reach Baekhyun’s orbit and he takes even more time to answer. But Baekhyun will answer. He’s never been able to ignore Chanyeol.

They say patience is a virtue. It is. Chanyeol spent months waiting for Baekhyun to be ready for him, to be ready to fall in love with him. For some things, he’s still waiting. He can’t touch Baekhyun like he wants, he can’t say what he wants and he can’t shag him like he wants. But Chanyeol knows what he wants. And now he has Baekhyun, his own Byun Baekhyun, imperfect and human and Chanyeol’s boyfriend. Chanyeol couldn’t have wished for anything else.

_Give him a little time, be patient, don’t lose sight of what you want. You want him and he’ll come back to you in the right time. Don’t ever give up._  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> hagwon: private institute, cram school  
> hweshik: company dinner (where you probably drink more than you should)  
> sageuk: historical drama


	4. Some people reflect light, some deflect it, you by some miracle, seem to collect it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meeting the parents, a big bad fight and a birthday wish.

  
_“Some people reflect light, some deflect it, you by some miracle, seem to collect it.”_  
— Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

  
**xxiii. DESUETUDE**  
(n) a state of disuse

Chanyeol knew it was a terrible idea. Yura’s ideas are always terrible by default.

He sends a quick glare to his sister - _congratulations, you’ve surpassed your usual level of stupidity this time_ , to which she answers with an eye roll that probably means she thinks he’s the stupid one, since he keeps following her advices. Chanyeol keeps frowning, but he focuses on the diplomatic mess in front of him.

“I haven’t seen your mother in a while. I hope her health is well.”

Baekhyun shakes and Chanyeol’s mother smiles. He can’t see her, of course, but he knows she’s smiling. He’s always been so perceptive. Chanyeol stares at him, as intensely as he can, hoping his boyfriend can feel the weight of the gaze resting on him and know he’s not alone in this.

Chanyeol wishes he hadn’t come. There’s a reason he left his house and sure, he’s the only son, he’ll always be welcome here, he _is_ welcome here, but his boyfriend is not. He knows, Baekhyun knows, Yura knew it too when she invited Chanyeol and his new boyfriend at home.

“It’ll be funny,” she said. “Mom will love him,” she said. Yura is always too hopeful, a born optimist. (Chanyeol is the pessimist of the family, but he likes to call himself the realistic one.)

Baekhyun licks his lips and clasps his hand together. Sunyoung combed his hair back and made him wear a nice shirt. He looks lovely and cold, like a boy Chanyeol once knew.

“Oh, I’m sure my mother is well. I will send her your regards, Mrs. Park.” He nods, the perfect embodiment of elegance and politeness, but there’s something in his face, in his smirk, that makes the smile in Mrs. Park’s eyes turn sour.

Chanyeol’s mother has no love for Baekhyun. She agreed - not that Chanyeol had asked her opinion on this matter - to their friendship only when she knew the boy was not only rich but also the son of one of her husband’s associates, but she opposed to their relationship fiercely when she realized it was more than a friendship.

“I don’t really care what you think, Mother,” Chanyeol had said, over the phone, ignoring her high-pitched threats. He hadn’t cared when he had left home and he sure won’t start caring now, but he needs to set some boundaries. “You are free to think whatever you want of my choice, but if you try to meddle in my business with this person I will not forgive you. You can welcome another son or lose the one you already have, it doesn’t matter to me. I have already proved myself I’m perfectly able to survive without you or Father’s help.”

“Then bring him home and let me meet him,” was her reply, the words stinging through the headphones. “Let me bring this person who turned my only son into a-”

“Mother!”

Chanyeol had refused, in the beginning, but his mother got also Yura involved and Chanyeol has never been able to say no to his sister.

He should’ve realized it was a trap.

His mother makes him sit at her side, as if to show Baekhyun who’s in charge. She’s trying to stake a claim, to intimidate an opponent. She’s going to fight a war. The saddest thing is that she can’t win, not against Baekhyun. Not in Chanyeol’s heart. He’s already left her even before Baekhyun came into the picture, when he realized he loved his parents, but he would never be able to marry the daughter of an associate and give them grandchildren. Not when he dreamed of rough edges, of lean bodies and muscular chests and cocks. His mother had slapped him when he had told her. It took him three days to pack his stuff and leave. It was the first time. It would take another three years before he was really able to leave that house. (It took him four to finally come back, holding Baekhyun’s hand as he walked through that door. In the end, Park Chanyeol didn’t bend. His parents did.)

“More tea, my dear?” Chanyeol refuses with a curt gesture and waits for her to ask the same to Baekhyun. When she doesn’t, his scowl only deepens.

The saddest thing is that Baekhyun can’t even see how well Mrs. Park’s plan played out. He can’t admire her perfect house, be jealous of her modern, expensive furniture. He can’t admire her son - _her_ son and not _his_ boyfriend - sitting next to her like a knight attending to his queen. He can’t admire her, think she looks younger than she is or wonder about the value of her jewels, her clothes, her smooth face.

It’s the triumph of the culture of appearance, thinks Chanyeol, and its greatest fall at the same time. Appearance has no appeal on a blind boy. And any display of wealth would be lost on the son of a woman who can blackmail the future Prime Minister. Maybe Byun Baekbom is his father’s son, but Baekhyun, in the good and in the bad things, is definitely his mother’s son.

“Chanyeol never told me how you got to know my mother,” he says, delicate, falsely curious, the most charming liar. Chanyeol sits back and wonders what kind of game Baekhyun is trying to play here.

“We shared a few classes in college, I think. We weren’t even friends, just passing acquaintances,” Mrs. Park replies, the teacup shaking slightly in her hands until she puts it back on the coffee table with an audible clink. 

“Oh, I see. It’s not difficult to believe it, considering she never named you among her friends.”

Oh, there it is. Neat cut, pretty, without blood. Baekhyun would’ve been a perfect hunter. It’s a pity he can’t see Mrs. Park’s face assuming a delicate shade of plum.

Yura coughs. “More tea, Baekhyunnie?”

They drink tea and talk about roses. Baekhyun surprised Mrs. Park and Yura with his knowledge of the language of the flowers. Chanyeol’s mother doesn’t mention Baekhyun’s mother again.

Later, while the conversation moves onto arranged marriage, offspring and the future of the family, boring and at the same time dangerous topics, Chanyeol gets up and takes Baekhyun’s hand. He sends a quick apology to his mother before pulling his boyfriend up and leading him towards the room at the end of the corridor. Baekhyun follows him without hesitation, but his hand clamps around Chanyeol in uncertainty.

“Where are we going?” he asks.

“My room,” explains Chanyeol, “kind of.”

It’s the only empty room of the house and it’s not empty at all. There are boxes, boxes everywhere. When he left, he only packed the essentials, leaving everything else behind. An entire lifetime enclosed in big, small, grey boxes. He opens them, telling Baekhyun what he finds. He talks about that time in third grade when he wanted to become an astronomer and his mother bought him a telescope. He talks about his ferret, fourth grade, and the medal he won in mathletics in fifth grade.

“We would’ve met, eventually,” says Baekhyun, suddenly. He’s sitting on a box of books, stable enough to hold his weight. “My mother wanted me to go to the same middle school you mentioned. There were talks of sending me there. I could still see, back then. It took years to get to the point where I couldn’t see almost anything.”

“Why didn’t she send you?”

“She didn’t want me to get used to that kind of life before it slipped out of my fingers.” He says it, like it’s obvious. Like how can’t Chanyeol understand?

“That’s the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard.”

Baekhyun smiles.

“Isn’t it?” He hugs his knees. “I wished I had gone. I would’ve seen you, at least once.”

“I was an ugly kid,” confesses Chanyeol. “Quite unimpressive.”

“It’s not like it matters to me.”

There’s nothing he can say to that, so he keeps going through the boxes, while Baekhyun hums a popular song under his breath to fill the silence. Something tiny tugs at his heart. It might be melancholy and it might be happiness. He wishes he had a real room to show Baekhyun, with memories hanging from the walls and secrets hidden under his bed, but this room doesn’t even have a bed. Chanyeol’s memories are collecting dust inside paper boxes.

“Oh, found it!” he says, extracting his old acoustic guitar from a big yellow box at the end of the room.

“What?”

Chanyeol doesn’t answer, he just plucks the strings once and Baekhyun jumps in his seat, excited. “You also know how to play it?”

The guitar is old and out of tune, but Chanyeol never forgot how to play it.

“So, you can still surprise me, Park Chanyeol,” says Baekhyun, amused and fond and terribly soft like he’s only recently learned how to be.

Chanyeol plays a soft song, random keys blossoming into music. In the silence of the room, with the sun cascading from the windows, turning the dust into floating gold and Baekhyun’s dark hair into a shining halo, the notes turn into gold too.

“I was a terrible kid. No one wanted to play with me because I was always winning, but I always managed to convince someone only to beat them and have running away in tears later.”

“I suppose I was the opposite. I didn’t care about competition when I was younger. I guess I just got bitter with age.” In the old photos back at Mrs. Kim’s house, Baekhyun shone the brightest. A pure, undiluted glow, the biggest smile. Chanyeol would die to go back in time and see that again, but there’s something else now. This Baekhyun, splintered and broken, this Baekhyun who put himself together out of sheer will, has gold flowing through the cracks of his soul. This is the Baekhyun Chanyeol fell in love with. 

Baekhyun tilts his head to the side, following the echoes of the music, and suddenly says, “You didn’t change, though.” Chanyeol’s fingers slip and the note that comes out is too long and out of place. “You still hate to lose.”

“I don’t mind losing,” he says. It’s not a lie, but it’s not the truth either. He just never thought Baekhyun would notice something like that.

“You only don’t mind losing at the things you don’t care about. If you want to win, you simply win. It’s always been like that, with me too.” It’s incredibly accurate and incredibly merciless of Baekhyun to expose him like this.

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you play with me like that, since the beginning? You let me boss you around because you didn’t care about me in the slightest. But when you actually liked me, you pretended to be my friend for months instead of doing anything, just because you wanted me to go crazy about you.”

Chanyeol stares, openly. He stops playing. His silence must have surprised Baekhyun, because the boy just snorts.

“You didn’t think I would realize? Chanyeol, you’re so silly. I think about you all the time. In the darkness, among the many things I can’t see, you’re the only one that shines bright.”

Chanyeol has stopped playing, but the sun is still shining and Baekhyun still looks like an angel, humming the song under his breath.

“I knew since the beginning,” he says, “since the first time you came to my house, that you didn’t like losing. I didn’t want to lose to you, either.” Baekhyun smiles. “It took me a long time to realize that you winning didn’t mean I was going to lose.”

Chanyeol puts the guitar down. Baekhyun’s analysis was painfully accurate. “In the end, you’re the one who surprised me,” he says, accepting his defeat, and Baekhyun’s smile is not soft, but sharp and bright like a blade of gold.

“You should take it back,” he says. “The guitar, I mean. We could play it, in my apartment, sitting on the floor, the next time you get drunk. I’m exceptionally good at drunk-singing.”

Chanyeol doesn’t say anything but folds the guitar in its custody and straps it around his shoulders.

“Shouldn’t we go back? Before your mother starts looking for us.” He extends a hand and Chanyeol takes it, intertwining their fingers together before he scoops him in his arms for a kiss.

“There you are, ready for another terrific talk with my mother. She’s such a sweet lady, isn’t she?”

“Come on, Park Chanyeol. Have you seen _my mother_? Yours is a true piece of cake for me.”

He lets Chanyeol take him back to the living room, still humming the song softly under his breath.

  
**xxiv. OBLOQUY**  
(n) harsh public condemnation

It’s sudden, unexpected and totally planned.

The door opens and Chanyeol’s father walks in. He looks at his wife, at his daughter, then at his son and at his son’s boyfriend. They’re all drinking tea. It’s a beautiful morning of spring and the cherry trees are in blossom. The view outside is beautiful, a dream of pale pinks and washed out greys. He pretends to be surprised.

“Chanyeol-ah, you should’ve told me you were coming. I would’ve cleared my schedule.”

Chanyeol looks at his mother, confusion swirling in his eyes. Baekhyun just looks in the direction the new voice came from, his lips already forming a polite greeting.

“You all don’t mind if I take care of a few things with my friend here?”

He doesn’t wait to hear their answer before he takes off his jacket. The door is still open. Someone else enters after him, a thin man who looks a lot like the CEO of one of the biggest _chaebols_ of the country and Seoul’s next mayor. Chanyeol’s heart drops.

President Byun looks a lot like Baekbom. A shark wearing a suit. He’s tall and elegant and he looks older than he is. He looks like a face on the glossy cover of a popular magazine. He looks like someone who’d leave his sons behind to protect his political career. (In that, too, he looks like Baekbom. Except Baekbom came back. He didn’t.)

He steps inside the room and he searches the room, as if looking for someone. His eyes find Chanyeol’s for a moment - an unreadable stare that lasts less than a moment - before he finally looks at his son. Baekhyun still doesn’t know. He’s starting to look a little uncomfortable with the tense silence wrapped around the parlour, but he has no idea his father is just standing there, on the other side of the room, his eyes still unreadable even now that he’s watching his own son.

There’s no way this wasn’t planned. Chanyeol doesn’t need to see the quick glance his parents are exchanging to realize it.

“Excuse me if I intrude,” says President Byun, his eyes still focused on his youngest son. Baekhyun’s face twists as he takes in the voice. For a moment his features look lost, as if they don’t know which path they should take. He opens his mouth, closes it, furrowed brow and confusion swirling in his every gesture. He runs a hand through his hair, taking a moment to find himself again. When he lays it down on his knees, his face has gone back to a cautious, neutral expression. But, for someone who knows where to look, it’s easy to spot the slight shake of his knees, or the way his hands hold the fabric of his pants a little too tightly. For someone who knows where to look, Baekhyun is so hopelessly transparent and clear.

Chanyeol gets up, suddenly, startling everyone in the room. “Father, what a nice surprise! I’d gladly wait for you and your friend to be done, but I’m afraid we’re leaving soon. It’s a pity we can’t stay more.” He keeps talking. From the corner of his eyes, he sees Baekhyun snapping out of the confused daze he was in and turning his face to follow Chanyeol’s voice. _That’s right,_ he thinks, _focus on my voice, come on. I’m getting you out of this._

“Oh, but I insist,” says his father. “I haven’t talked to you in so long. And since Baekhyun is here too, maybe you two could stay for lunch.”

Chanyeol ignores him and takes Baekhyun’s hand. “I’m afraid it’s impossible. But thank you for the offer, maybe next time?”

“Chanyeol, don’t be rude, you just arrived,” says Mrs. Park. She doesn’t lose her smile but there’s a clear warning behind her politeness. Chanyeol doesn’t care. About her warnings, about her plans, he doesn’t care what the deal between his father and Chanyeol’s father is. He’s taking Baekhyun away from this... from this ambush.

“Your mother is right, Chanyeol.”

He stops in his tracks. Baekhyun’s face has gone back to a neutral, cold look that reminds Chanyeol of the old colonial house in the outskirts of Seoul, of dolls and dust and soft roses.

“We should stay a little more, if you don’t mind.” He puts his teacup back on the table. The movement is elegant and firm, only a tiny clink of porcelain against glass betrays the clumsiness behind it. “Since your father’s guest went to great lengths in order to meet me, the least I can do is listen what he has to say.”

“It’s been a long time, Baekhyun,” says President Byun. “You were a lot less reasonable the last time we talked.”

Something quirks at the corner of Baekhyun’s mouth. It could be an aborted laugh. It’s bitter and tiny and ugly. “You mean when you decided to leave? Yes, I guess I wasn’t all that happy with that decision. You’ll find out I can be quite pleasant when you’re not trying to get rid of me, Father.”

Chanyeol’s mother gasps and Yura chokes an incredulous laugh behind her hand. President Byun’s eyes harden. “I will not accept such nonsense from you, boy. I didn’t accept it back then and I won’t accept it now.”

“It’s a bit late to show some backbone now, isn’t it?” He sighs theatrically. “You should’ve acted like a father when I really needed one. But I suppose saving your own career was more important than your own son.”

“Byun Baekhyun, I’m not going to repeat myself…”

Chanyeol knows a warning when he sees one. He knows what happens when Baekhyun’s lips curl inwards and almost disappear, when he bites his bottom lip and smiles, wicked.

“Who knows what your electors would say if they knew the man they trust to run this city couldn’t even take care of his own child. You should be careful that the story doesn’t come out. The public can be very harsh sometimes.”

It’s like going back in time. This is not the Baekhyun of chicken and beer, of instant _ramyun_ and blueberry _soju_ to drink under cherry blossom and rain. (He can’t see them but he can feel them fall, on his face, on his open hands and on his puckered lips. He tried to catch them once, “Because in a drama I heard that if you catch a falling petal in your hand you’ll meet your destined one.”) This is not the Baekhyun who sings _Arirang_ from the balcony when he’s drunk while Chanyeol plays the guitar.

This is the Baekhyun of red roses and porcelain dolls. The Baekhyun of red wine, dust and loneliness. He has his mother’s laugh and he uses it, just because he knows it would offend his father more. He has her loneliness and a speck of her madness and a lot of anger.

The need to pull Baekhyun away from this conversation, from the past that keeps coming back to drag him down with greedy hands, grows stronger, but there’s nothing Chanyeol can do if Baekhyun wants to stay here and fight.

Baekhyun’s father turns towards Chanyeol’s father. “May I borrow a room? I need to talk with my son, alone.”

Chanyeol says no, but Baekhyun says yes. Baekhyun gets up and goes for the door without hesitation. He’s been in the house enough times to know where to go without help, but he still stops in the middle of the room and waits for Chanyeol.

“My office will be fine,” says Chanyeol’s father, ignoring his son’s furious face. President Byun too pretends not to see it the glare of pure venom Chanyeol sends him.

“Are you sure it’ll be alright?” he asks to Baekhyun in hushed tones, ignoring the cold eyes of both their fathers. Baekhyun shrugs. “Not really, but it’s not like I can ignore him forever.”

Chanyeol nods and steps closer, his lips gracing Baekhyun’s ear so that the two older men on the corridor can’t hear. “Don’t let him get to you. You’re stronger.”

He leads Baekhyun his father’s personal room, making him sit on the couch.

“I’ll be right here, on the other side of the door, if you need me,” he whispers in hushed tones.

“We’re just talking, Chanyeol. There’s no reason to worry.”

Oh, but Chanyeol worries. He worried so much he calls Baekbom, because it’s not fair that he’s the only one who’s worried.

“About time,” Baekbom says, disgruntles and sleepy, in his best 3AM voice. “He’s been hinting at a possible meeting with Baekhyun for a while, but I always refused to help him.”

“He’s an asshole, just like you.”

“And you, Park Chanyeol. Don’t forget you’re an asshole too. Anyway, don’t worry.”

“How can I not worry? He’s in there, alone...”

“If I were you I’d worry for my father, not for Baekhyun. He has quite a lot of pent up frustration to release. But the old man had it coming and they both need closure.”  
“Yes but...”

“You can’t do this for him, Park. You can only trust him.”  
m  
Chanyeol doesn’t trust anyone. He doesn’t trust himself, he doesn’t Baekbom and he doesn’t trust Baekhyun. He especially doesn’t trust Baekhyun’s father, but there’s really nothing he can do but wait, until the door opens and Baekhyun comes out slowly, following the wall with his hands.

“Chanyeol, are you here?”

“Yes,” he says, rushing to his side.

Baekhyun takes a deep breath. “I think we can go now.”

Baekhyun doesn’t tell him what the conversation was about and Chanyeol doesn’t ask. They go to the park together and Chanyeol treats Baekhyun to _sannakji_ and records the way Baekhyun squirms and shivers in disgust.

“What the fucking hell did you make me eat?” he asks, on the verge of retching. Chanyeol laughs and pats his back. “You should finish it all, it’s really expensive.”

“The hell, it’s alive, take it away I’m just going to throw up.”

He takes Baekhyun to an art museum later, to watch an exhibition of sound art. Baekhyun hides it well but he’s quite pretty when he’s satisfied. “I can’t believe you can actually be a decent boyfriend, Park Chanyeol.” He beams and red flourishes on his ears and the bridge of his nose.

“At least one of us has to be,” he says, and Baekhyun pretends he’s offended.

“At least I didn’t forget our one hundred days anniversary. Unlike you.”

“What are you? A high schooler? One hundred days anniversaries are for kids.”

Baekhyun’s nails dig into his wrist in revenge and he retaliates with a pinch on Baekhyun’s side.  
On their way home, they buy _odeng_ , because it’s still cold enough to enjoy fish cakes in spicy broth, and blueberry _soju_ , Baekhyun’s favorite.

“Let’s get drunk,” Baekhyun says.

“I can play the guitar, but you have to sing,” says Chanyeol.

  
**xxv. FANTODS**  
(n) state of extreme anxiety, distress; ‘feeling so attacked right now’

The cherry blossoms bloom, wither and finally fall, together with silver rain, one foggy day of April. Baekhyun stops playing with the remote control of Jongdae’s television to sit in front of the window and listen to the sound of the rain.

“You’ll get cold if you stay there without a jacket,” calls Chanyeol from the kitchen.

“I’m not cold. I like the sound of the rain.”

Chanyeol puts a blanket over him and drags the heater closer. “Be careful, I’ve put the heater in, front of your feet. Can you feel it?” Baekhyun wiggles his feet in contentment. “Hey, don’t knock it down!”

“I won’t forget it’s there, calm down.”

The sky cries and throws a tantrum like a whining child, stomping his foot on the ground in the form of blinding white lightning and rumbling thunders.

“Can you see it? The lightning I mean?”

Baekhyun shrugs. “I’m not sure. It could be just my imagination. Sometimes I want to see things so much I make them up in my mind. Baekbom took me to the doctor last week. He said I will probably lose my eyesight in my left eye completely in less than a year.” He hides his face against his pajama pants and breathes in the smell of cotton and fabric softener. He sighs, soundlessly.

“I don’t want to lose my eyesight,” he says. He doesn’t cry - he never cry - but the sound of the rain washing away the pollution of the city, hitting the ground, the wall, the glass of the windows, sounds like the sky is crying for him. “It’s stupid, isn’t it? I can barely see anything. In the strongest light the best I can see is grey shadows moving, but I still don’t want to lose it.”

“It’s not stupid, Baekhyun. It’s not...”

“When you first came to my house, the maids said you had red hair, and I tried my best to look at you, but I couldn’t even see exactly where you were. I felt so stupid. I feel so stupid every time you smile at me, because I know you’re smiling. You have like... a smiling voice. And I know you’re smiling but I can’t see you, no matter how hard I look. I can’t imagine your smile.”

The rain washes away the cherry blossoms and Baekhyun’s unshed tears. He doodles on the hazy surface of the glass, swirls and little, drunken stars.

“I know you’ve talked with your parents. I know they want you to come back home. And I know you’re thinking about it.”

Oh, so it’s about _that_.

“I’m their only son, of course they want me to come home.”

“They don’t like me,” he sulks.

“They don’t know you, it’s different.”

It’s a lie and they both know it. No father would want his only son to be gay. No father would want his only son to be gay and in love with a blind man. But Baekhyun is his father’s son and his mother’s son and they can’t really say anything about him. That, and they both know where Chanyeol’s loyalty resides. The problem is… does Baekhyun know?

Baekhyun turns his head towards the ceiling, exposing his neck, his throat, the line of his clavicle. The light hits his face through the raindrops, fractured in tiny little luminous shards. He looks beautiful and a little broken, like the boy Chanyeol first fell in love with.

“Even if they knew me things wouldn’t change. I still would be the jobless blind kid who can’t give you an heir, can’t accompany you at charity events and impress people with his knowledge of politics or art or music. I’m useless in their eyes.” His words are thin and cold. They fall, like raindrops, like teardrops, one after another. They sound like defeat. “You know what the funniest thing is, Chanyeol? I’ve probably spent months running away from that house, from my own mother, only to end up just like her.”

Chanyeol stops him with a finger on his lips. He stops him because he, too, has a limit.

“And what about me?” he says. He tries to keep his rage at bay, to leash it and hide it but there’s no way to hide this to Baekhyun, who’s too clever and too defenseless to ignore it. “After all of this, after everything I’ve done for you, you’d really think I’d choose my family over you?”

Baekhyun’s lips are thin now, from anger. If Chanyeol kissed him, he would find them chapped and dry. If Chanyeol kissed him long enough, he would make them soft and tender, shiny with spit, bitten-red, like fresh strawberries in April.

“Your father is a politician, Chanyeol. If you come back home and start working in his big company, in the end he’ll want you to take the same path. He’ll want you to have a decent wife and sons and a family, and you’ll want it too.”

“Baekhyun-”

Baekhyun pushes his hands away, puts some distance between them the way he always does when he’s mad, when he’s afraid, when he has lost and when he is lost.

“You think my father didn’t love my mother? He did. But he left her anyway, and here you are telling me you love me, promising me you’ll take me to see the roses in May, but I’m blind and I won’t be able to see them. I won’t be the person you want and you’ll leave me and I’ll be alone, again, with memories of a moment I couldn’t even see!”

 

There’s a limit to how much bullshit Chanyeol can hear. There’s a limit to how much he can refrain himself from physically lunging at Baekhyun, not when Baekhyun wants to fight so much.

“If you say another word, I swear Baekhyun…”

“You’re a liar, just like him-” Chanyeol yanks his collar and shoves him, trying to get him to shut up. Baekhyun is ready. He knew, he was expecting it. He shoves Chanyeol back. Chanyeol yanks his arm to keep his balance and they fall together, a knot of limbs, of teeth and nails and screams, so tangled and messy that even the only advantage Chanyeol has in a fight against Baekhyun, his sight, becomes completely useless. Baekhyun bites and scratches and kicks wherever he reaches, hissing like an angry cat.

Chanyeol rolls them over, using his weight to pin Baekhyun down, and Baekhyun knees him in the balls, hard. He whimpers and hits back, blindly, fat tears in his eyes, and now he’s hurt and angry and dangerous. He doesn’t think about Baekhyun’s smile, his soft lips, the tender flesh of his face surrendering to a smile, red blossoming on his cheeks and ears. He doesn’t think about Baekhyun’s pretty hands, made to hold a brush or hit the keys of a piano, made to turn pages and explore Chanyeol’s body.

Chanyeol thinks about Baekhyun’s eyes and they’re not empty but full of ice and fire, they’re cold and angry. He thinks about nails, digging under the skin, about Baekhyun’s poisonous tongue. He thinks Baekhyun wanted this. He wanted violence, he wanted fists and bites. Baekhyun is not a doll or a flower, Baekhyun is a boy, all adrenaline and testosterone and hunger for victory. Baekhyun wants to be treated like a boy – like a normal boy, not like Chanyeol’s blind pet. Chanyeol, probably, doesn’t think at all. He only hears the smash of his fist against Baekhyun’s face, the sickening feel of blood, viscid and thick and so wet, against his hand, between his fingers, running down Baekhyun’s face. Baekhyun cusses and moans in pain and he probably coughs. Chanyeol feels hurt all over.

He rolls away from his boyfriend and watches, with a cruelty he usually doesn’t feel, as Baekhyun has a mini freak-out about being left alone, unable to see where Chanyeol is, but still stubbornly refuses to call Chanyeol back.

“I know you’re here,” says Baekhyun, the words a little muffled with all the blood running down his face. “I can hear you breathe.”

Chanyeol doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything for a long time.

“Are you freaking out because you hit a blind person?”

“You’re an asshole. You’re a fucking asshole,” he says, voice breaking, his hand still slick with Baekhyun’s blood.

“You hit back.” Baekhyun replies, spitting the words out. He’s lucky he’s not spitting out a tooth or two, too. Chanyeol punched him with every intention to break his face.

“You wanted me to do this! You...”

“You hit back,” repeats Baekhyun, and Chanyeol punches the wall and curses, hard and loud, resisting the urge to punch Baekhyun again.

“I don’t care if you’ve never experienced being punched in your face and you wanted to try, next time you try to make me do something like this, I’ll leave. You understand me? I’ll leave!” He’s screaming and feeling like an idiot, the awareness that he could’ve really hurt Baekhyun - and he still doesn’t know exactly how much damage he did - bubbles hysterically in his chest.

“You could’ve left today too, but you stayed! I didn’t make this mess alone so stop trying to push all the blame on me when you threw the first punch! And you’re not even angry because you’ve hurt me, you’re angry because you feel manipulated.” He breathes heavily through the red on his face. “Well, welcome to my world, Park Chanyeol, where everyone is trying to manipulate me into doing something and I literally have no leverage to fucking do anything. So yes, I was angry! I was angry when I talked to my father too. I wanted to punch him hard enough to break his nose, but I couldn’t do it. I wanted to punch my brother the first time he came to visit me here, and I couldn’t do it. I wanted to punch you, when you started working for my mother and many other times. You don’t understand how it is, how powerless I feel sometimes, and there you are complaining that I made you do something, as if I had any power over you to begin with!”

Baekhyun pushes himself upwards and walks to the counter. He grabs a cloth from the drawer and pushes it to his face, moaning softly. He looks wrecked and tender and full of sharp edges like this. Chanyeol probably looks the same. Everything comes back full circle.

“You have power over me, Baekhyun. You’re probably the only one who can rile me up like that.” He doesn’t try to reach for Baekhyun. He still wants to punch him. “What you did was dangerous and stupid.”

“I just want you to see me as an equal.”

“I see you as an equal.”

Chanyeol will count his bruises tomorrow. Baekhyun put them on him, purple and red on his skin. This is Baekhyun’s doing. A poor attempt at saying _you’re mine_. He’s so stupid. And an asshole. Chanyeol doesn’t know what to do with him.

“Am I really an equal for you? I’ll never be able to make you proud. Sometimes, talking with your friends, or with your _sunbae_ at work, you’ll wish the topic of me will never come out because it’ll be embarrassing. Because you’ll be ashamed.”

“Would you have rather been a different person? A person like my mother? Like your mother?” Slaves of their jewels, their houses, their beauty, of their sons, to the point they would go crazy without them? “Did you really want to be like them? You would’ve never been my equal, then.”

Had Baekhyun not lost his sight, where would they be now? What kind of person would he have grown up to be? Chanyeol can almost imagine him, wearing a tailored suit, holding a flute of champagne, a secret smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Strong, charismatic. Would Chanyeol’s parents have accepted him more easily, then? Would Chanyeol have fallen in love with him anyway? He’s not sure. He’s in love with this scared, bruised man who can’t see but feels too much, who keeps making mistakes and hurting himself, like a fish caught in a net, struggling endlessly and only tangling himself in it more and more. Baekhyun and his beautiful contradictions. Baekhyun and his nonsense logic.

Chanyeol takes Baekhyun’s face in his hands, to clean the blood Baekhyun can’t see properly, but Baekhyun slaps them away, although weakly. He’s waiting, for Chanyeol to finish his piece, for the curtain to fall.

“Don’t you think, Baekhyun, that maybe, just maybe, I wanted something different? If I had wanted to become a politician and to marry a girl who could talk about art and literature, and to take her to parties so that everyone could envy me and my mother could brag about it with her friends at the club, I would’ve just stayed home. From the beginning. But I didn’t want that. I didn’t know what I wanted, but now I know. You might not know, you might have doubts, but I know.”

Baekhyun doesn’t have an emergency kit at home and it’s too late to ring at Sunyoung’s door. Chanyeol ends up going to the closest convenience store and getting stared at by the young employee. He ignores the curious gaze resting on his swollen eye and bruised lip as he buys antiseptic and bandaids.

When he comes home, Baekhyun is standing on the balcony. Chanyeol opens the sliding door as loudly as he can, hoping he doesn’t startle him, and calls him inside.

Baekhyun shakes his head.

“You’re overreacting. And you’re cold. Come here, Baekhyun-ah.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I will kiss you if you do.”

And maybe it’s his promise of not being angry, despite everything that happened, that lures Baekhyun inside.

Baekhyun’s lips are chapped, a little dry. He traces them with his thumb first and then with his lips. Carefully. Slowly. Baekhyun is so cold and he tastes like blood and rain. When he lets go, Baekhyun only tastes like Chanyeol.

“It was your father, wasn’t it?” he asks, before Baekhyun can fall asleep. The bed seems impossibly big, with all the empty space stretching wide between them. Chanyeol wants to cross the distance but he doesn’t dare. “Did he tell you I would leave you?”

Baekhyun thinks hard about the answer.

“He told me I reminded him of my mother. He told me I was just like her. I don’t want to make the same mistakes she did. I don’t want to find myself alone in that big house. She’s going crazy. I don’t want you to leave me like he did with her.”

Chanyeol doesn’t make empty promises. He builds his trust day after day, with facts and not with words. He hugs Baekhyun. Today he’s here, with Baekhyun. Tomorrow he’ll still be here with Baekhyun. In twenty years he doesn’t know where he’ll be, but he really really hopes Baekhyun will be there too.

  
**xxvi. LISSOME**  
(adj) thin, graceful

“Are the roses in bloom?” asks Baekhyun. The taxi slows down and comes to a halt in front of the huge gate. Mrs. Lee, the oldest maid, is waiting for them at the entrance, holding the lateral door open.

It’s too early for the roses. The siege of the winter has lasted too long this year, with the last snow sprinkling the mountains white only a few weeks ago. The roses are still sleeping, but other flowers have made their appearance. Pink peonies, lilac freesia and delphimium, white lilies and callas.

Chanyeol leads Baekhyun through the garden, making his way through a daedalus of vines, of bushes and hedges who are only now starting to dress up with new leaves and blossoms. The grass is soft. The first bees are already buzzing. Baekhyun’s smile widens.

Mrs. Kim wears red on her lips and on her body. She looks tinier than Chanyeol remembered her, older. There’s a trail of silver starting from her forehead and ending in the austere chignon behind her head and new wrinkles around her eyes and lips. She has aged ten years in only a few months, but when she speaks her voice is just as sharp.

“I thought you weren’t coming back,” she says, as greeting.

“Hello, mother.”

She nods quickly at Chanyeol, as if to dismiss him, but he ignores her and sits next to Baekhyun under the trellis.

“I see you both decided to defy my will in my home.”

“It’s been a few months, Mrs. Kim,” says Chanyeol, respectfully. He doesn’t really like this woman, despite her striking similarities with Baekhyun. (Or maybe it’s because of her striking similarities with Baekhyun. He got his worst sides from her, soaked up all her flaws one by one when he was a child.) But she is Baekhyun’s mother, and Baekhyun desperately wants to be with her.

“I can’t leave her alone,” he told Chanyeol, only a few days ago. “I want to visit her. I know it wasn’t her fault. I know she’s not well and she needs me. If I don’t go, I will be just like my father, won’t I? But I’m so scared. That could be my future.”

And Chanyeol couldn’t let him come alone in the lair of the witch. So they came, together, and together they will leave, regardless of what Mrs. Kim wants.

“It’s been a few months since you stole my son, again,” she says, finally acknowledging Chanyeol’s presence.

“I haven’t been stolen, Mother. I’m here. And you can talk to me. Chanyeol is not my caretaker.”

“No, your brother is your caretaker. To think both my sons would betray me like this.”

“I am my own caretaker, Mother. I am almost twenty-five years old,” says Baekhyun, with a light frown.

“Who is paying for your expenses? The rent? Groceries? Clothes? If you can’t provide for yourself you can’t consider yourself independent. You should’ve stayed here and I would’ve given you everything you wanted.” Her lips are tight. Maybe they tremble. Chanyeol can see, how frail and tiny she is, how alone. He wonders if Baekhyun can feel it too, or if in his imagination she’ll always be the beautiful, unbreakable woman she was in his childhood.

“You’ve already done it. You raised me after that man left, you took care of me. But I can’t be your child forever.”

Baekhyun is not a child. He hasn’t been for a long time. Chanyeol wishes they could see, both his parents, what kind of man he’s going to become. He’s kind of weird and twisted and most of the time he sounds like he’s drowning, but there’s a hidden beauty in him, the ability to fill the cracks with gold, to get up and move forward, even in total darkness. Baekhyun is undeniably beautiful.

“You are still my child, Baekhyunnie. You’ll forever be my child. You’re mine.”

“Funny how father said the same thing,” Baekhyun says, lost and melancholic, and that hits her harder than everything else.

“Did you meet him?” she asks. Her voice doesn’t shake but her everything else does.  
“I did. A few weeks ago. He has a new family, you know? A daughter and two sons who will be ready to tear themselves to pieces when it’s time to inherit the company. He told me he was willing to support me.”

(“Quite preposterous of him. I hope you refused,” had said Chanyeol after Baekhyun told him, unable to keep the venom out of his voice, but Baekhyun had just hummed, nuzzling him like a big, sleepy cat. “Of course I did. Who needs that old man anyway?”)

Baekhyun’s mother loses a beat. She closes her eyes, flustered, to avoid Chanyeol’s gaze. In this too she looks like Baekhyun. She doesn’t want to be pitied.

“Will you accept his help?” she asks, once she’s regained control of her voice.

“I don’t need his help,” explains Baekhyun. “I don’t need his help or your help and soon enough I won’t need Baekbom’s and Chanyeol’s help either. I’ve accepted a job at a school for visually impaired people. The pay is not good. It doesn’t cover the rent of the flat where I’m living, nor most of my expenses, but it’s a start.”

He pauses, unsure, and it’s so clear to Chanyeol that he’s waiting to be praised. Baekhyun is one of the most transparent and obvious people in the world. He wears his feelings on his face, on the nervous tics of his hands, on the way he squares up or hunches his shoulders. He can’t control his body language at all. He can’t see how much he’s showing so he ends up showing too much. Chanyeol hopes Mrs. Kim is watching. He hopes she understands because this time Baekhyun needs her praise, and he won’t settle for anything else.

“I didn’t raise you to work, my son.”

“That too, was something Father said. I told him he didn’t raise me at all. He wasn’t happy.”

That makes her smile, a flash of amusement. “I guess.”

“He think he knows what is right for me, but he doesn’t. Nor do you. I will never deny your right to call me your son, mother, but I’m not going to stay here and let you keep me under a crystal bell forever.”

There’s nothing she can say back to him without admitting defeat, so she doesn’t say anything at all. She asks for more tea and she questions Baekhyun about what kind of job he’s doing, how much he’s being paid, how he’s managing his money.

“I don’t understand why you’re working. You’re my son, you could have everything you wanted.”

“At your conditions, mother. But I don’t want to live here.”

His words hurt her. But he doesn’t apologize. She never apologized either, so they’re somehow even.

When Baekhyun leaves with Mrs. Lee to take some personal effects from his old room, Mrs. Kim turns towards Chanyeol.

“He has his father’s mind,” she says. “He would’ve liked him, had he actually put some effort into getting to know him.”

“He has a lot of his mother too,” he says, respectfully, and she just snorts at his fake politeness.

“I didn’t like your mother in university,” she says. “Cheap and vulgar. She doesn’t know what class and elegance are. And she raised an arrogant son.”

“She raised a son who can survive without her help.” _Can you say the same about yourself?_

“You won’t last. You’re like my husband, Park Chanyeol. One day you’ll break his heart and he’ll come back to me.”

“We’ll see. Until that day, let’s get along well.”

The sun sets beyond the horizon, painting the vines of the trellis gold and red. They stay at the house until the only color left is blue.

When their car leaves, Baekhyun sags against the car seat and finds Chanyeol’s hands.

“Thank you,” he says, intertwining their fingers together.

  
**xxvii. INDELIBLE**  
(v) to make marks that cannot be erased, removed, or forgotten 

It’s a strange creature, the dog-rose. A flower of the wild, growing in ditches, woods and fallow fields. If you groom it, if you raise it right, choosing and mixing the best-looking flowers, through centuries of careful and planned selection you could obtain the most beautiful rose in the world. Hundreds of petals of peerless grace. A queen, unspeakable and invaluable. It lasts a few days. Then, it dies.

But the dog-rose doesn’t care about scentless hybrids and the softest colors. It’s an unassuming, humble flower. It grows everywhere and never really withers. It endures It resists. The dog-rose, with its thorns and its tiny petals, tinier leaves, with its hypnotic, melancholic scent and its pastel pink crown, is the true miracle.

Chanyeol could’ve chosen between thousand of roses, but he didn’t want to give Baekhyun a corsage, beautiful and elegant and destined to perish in less than a week. He bought a flower pot, the biggest he could find, and asked the florist to plant a dog-rose inside.

“It’s very simple to manage this kind of plant. Just keep it in front of the sunlight, water it now and then, especially during spring and summer. Easy, right?”

It’s not easy, not for Baekhyun who can’t see. But he can touch and he can smell and he can smile. He smiles when Chanyeol tells him, “Happy birthday!”

It’s not the first birthday they spend together, but this one it’s special. Not only because this time they’re together, but also because for the first time since he was ten years old Baekhyun decided to throw a party. Sunyoung comes over and they bake a cake together. They invite Jongdae and his girlfriend Joohyun, Baekhyun’s coworkers and friends from the school and Chanyeol’s sister. Baekhyun’s mother sends a flower bouquet and Baekhyun’s father sends money and a card. Baekhyun asks Chanyeol to read the card.

(“He could’ve at least chosen a braille card,” complains Chanyeol later. “Would you just read it?” asks Baekhyun. He puts the flowers in a vase and the card in an old shoebox. He keeps the money and doesn’t really care.) 

Baekbom flies from New York alone, having broken up with his last girlfriend to Sunyoung’s delight. His gift for Baekhyun is a karaoke system and it takes three hours and the combined effort of Chanyeol, Jongdae and Do Kyungsoo, one of Baekhyun’s coworkers, to make it work. Baekhyun sings only the lyrics he remembers and promises to study hard for the next karaoke session. His voice is blunt and untrained, it breaks when he goes for the high-pitched screams but he still laughs. Chanyeol sings rap songs and easy ballads. When the party is over, after everyone else has left, he picks up his guitar and plays famous Western songs, whispering the lyrics in his terrible English and waiting for Baekhyun to tease him. 

Baekhyun kisses him instead, and it’s bold, sneaky and urgent. He forces Chanyeol to lay the guitar on the floor and slides onto his lap.

“I have a wish,” he says, between open-mouthed kisses.

“I already got you a birthday present.” Chanyeol pouts. “Besides, your birthday is already over.”

“It is not over until I say it is,” says Baekhyun, and this could easily evolve into their usual banter, into more kissing, into Chanyeol putting Baekhyun to bed and lying next to him until tomorrow, but there’s a hint of uncertainty in Baekhyun’s voice. Shyness maybe, so different from the quality of his kisses. It makes Chanyeol curious.

“What do you want?” he asks, and it feels like he’s done nothing in the past few years but asking this question to Baekhyun. The most important question. Chanyeol always knows what he wants, but he never really knows what Baekhyun wants.

Baekhyun breaths tight and shakes, a leaf ready to fall. Into the fire.

“I want to do it. Sex.”

And it’s like saying the magic word, like opening Pandora’s box and watching all the shadows run away into the night. Chanyeol has him pinned on the couch before he can say anything else, kissing him deeply, thoroughly. It’s pure instinct, the only thing he can do to quench the fire burning inside him. Baekhyun is the falling leaf, but Chanyeol... Chanyeol is the fire.

Baekhyun melts under his kisses, lets Chanyeol mold him into something softer, something warmer, something prettier. Chanyeol’s hands wander on Baekhyun’s chest and he thumbs his left nipple over the fabric, feeling Baekhyun tense and arch into his touch. Baekhyun doesn’t know, he has no idea. How much Chanyeol has wanted to do this. For how long. Since the first time he saw him, probably. But that was only blind desire, tainted by spite, by arrogance, by that tiny stain of pride Chanyeol will always deny to have in his heart. That was before the game started and before it ended.

That was _that_ and this is... This is important. This is one of the moments, the ones that will matter when everything else is forgotten. When the sky is dark and silent and the stars are the only light. This is what Chanyeol wants, and now Baekhyun wants it too.

Reluctantly, he parts from Baekhyun’s lips. He doesn’t want to ask but he needs to ask. He needs to make this right.

“Do you really want to do it?” Baekhyun’s answer is breathless and excited and impossibly fond.

“Yes.”

“Are you really sure, Baekhyun?”

And Baekhyun looks annoyed for a moment and Chanyeol can’t blame him. The things he wants to do to him, Baekhyun doesn’t know, can’t even imagine... But there’s only one first time and Chanyeol wants it to be the best.

“I love you,” he says, and Baekhyun flinches at the word, and then shudders, releasing all the tension in one single, breathy moan that travels right to Chanyeol’s chest, where his heart is beating. He swells with pride when he sees Baekhyun’s blush, red on his ears and on his nose, blossoming on his neck and chest. He’s doing this, his words can do this to Baekhyun’s body. It’s marvelous. He says it again, only to see the shiver that runs through Baekhyun’s body, impossible to stop and impossible to ignore.

“I love you and I want you to know that I would wait for you, my entire life. You don’t have to force yourself to open up to me if you don’t feel comfortable or...”

“You’re rambling. You never ramble. I can’t believe I made you so flustered just by asking you to have sex.”

It’s the laugh creeping behind Baekhyun’s words that makes something shift inside of Chanyeol. He grabs the boy by the butt - oh, Baekhyun’s startled moan - and pulls him closer, makes him feel exactly how much Chanyeol is flustered. Baekhyun’s face darkens in hot, red embarrassment.

“Do you know what you just asked me?” Baekhyun bites his lips when Chanyeol’s teeth scrape his jugular, biting hard enough to leave a bite. “Do you know how much I’ve wanted to do this?”

It seems a little preposterous to ask questions and even demand an answer when he’s still playing with Baekhyun’s nipple, this time without the barrier of the shirt - closer, hotter, the friction between their bodies still unbearable - and Baekhyun’s entire core seems to be focused on squirming and wiggling. His legs spread on their own, a sad attempt to lift some of the pressure off his cock, and when he realizes how exposed he is he closes them again only to moan at the lack of friction.

“I know you want it,” says Baekhyun, between tiny little whimpers that become real cries every time Chanyeol rolls his hips against him. “I’ve heard you jerking off, in the bathroom. In the morning. Every time you slept with me in this apartment.”

“So you knew? You listened? Baekhyun-ah, you’re naughtier than I thought. Did you touch yourself too while I came with your name on my lips?”

Baekhyun doesn’t do flustered. He doesn’t deal well with teasing either. His lips curl as he tries to scowl, but Chanyeol thrusts up against him again and the facade shatters like thin glass. He moans loudly and tries to cover his mouth with his hands, but Chanyeol stops him with a kiss.

“Don’t tease,” he says, when he can speak again.

“ _Don’t tease,_ he says, when he’s done nothing but tease me for months.”

“I did it,” says Baekhyun, breathless, and even now he _is_ teasing. “I... touched myself thinking about you. And every time we were together, when it looked like things could go this way, I never wanted to stop you but...”

Chanyeol hopes he’s washing away all of Baekhyun’s insecurities, all his doubts, with this kiss. He makes it longer, deeper. He covers as much as he can of Baekhyun’s body, wanting Baekhyun to feel all of him.

Baekhyun touches him too. The curious, insistent press of his fingers at the waistband of Chanyeol’s boxers is a constant distraction, driving Chanyeol insane.

“I’m going to take these off.”

He pulls at his pants until they’re sliding on the floor and takes off his shirt too. Baekhyun is already skimming out of his own clothes.

“There’s lube in the first drawer of the nightstand,” he says, and Chanyeol shakes his head, surprised.

“Who bought this for you?” he asks, incredulous.

“I did.”

Of course he did. He really thought about this, after all.

Chanyeol thought about this too, about taking Baekhyun, about ruining him for everyone else, about fucking him until he cried. Once, a long time ago, he dreamed of calling Baekhyun a whore.  
Now he can only watch the rise and fall of Baekhyun’s chest, the column of his neck, tender and exposed, the line of his hips, jutting out, highlighted by the lights of the city entering from the open window. He wants to cover Baekhyun’s skin in kisses and fuck him like no one else will ever fuck him. He wants to be the first and the last, the best, not for lack of terms of comparison but because he’s the only one who can make Baekhyun feel like touching the sky. He wants to own, not Baekhyun but this moment.

A long time ago, Park Chanyeol stole Baekhyun’s first kiss. This time, he doesn’t need to steal anything. He can take what is willingly offered. He can unravel Baekhyun’s defenses one by one. Except there’s no coldness to tear apart like silk, the poisonous words to unfasten like the buttons of his shirt have turned into sweet moans and words meant only for Chanyeol’s ears and all the secrets have already been peeled away, together with Baekhyun’s clothes. Chanyeol can already see all of Baekhyun and he’s sure, he’s more than sure, that Baekhyun can see him too. He wouldn’t be smiling so hard otherwise.

“So, aren’t you going to take me?”

Chanyeol smiles back and Baekhyun, like always, _like always_ , can feel it. He can’t see it but he knows Chanyeol is smiling at him. He knows Chanyeol is looking at him.

A click echoes in the silent apartment.

Chanyeol turns off the lights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> sannakji: alive octopus dish  
> odeng: Japanese broth with fishcakes, eggs, daikon and other ingredients  
> sunbae: senior  
> Arirang: Korea's most famous folk song


	5. Now I’ve learned the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Many first times.

  
_I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end._  
― Gilda Radner

  
**xviii. CONCUPISCENCE**  
(n) lust

Chanyeol doesn’t trust promises made of words, but this, he thinks, kissing Baekhyun on his eyes, nose and lips, he can believe in this. In Baekhyun’s warmth, the way he reacts to what Chanyeol is doing to him. The level of trust he’s showing, just by being there, naked, laid bare in front of Chanyeol for the first time. He’s shaking, little tremors running through his body, and Chanyeol would do anything to be able to see his face, but he can’t - _oh, so this is what Baekhyun must be feeling right now_ \- so he does what Baekhyun would do and kisses him again.

Baekhyun tilts his head and exposes his neck and pants, breathless, fighting against the intrusion of Chanyeol’s fingers inside him. Chanyeol touches him, slowly, feeling the tense plans of his chest, his stomach, the muscles rigid under his palm, coiling and contracting when Baekhyun’s insides clench around him.

“You’re too tense,” he says, in a whisper. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Really, Park Chanyeol? You said you were good at this, so make me feel good.”

Oh, he makes it sound so easy. Nothing is easy with Baekhyun, not even the things Chanyeol is really good at doing, like making people come apart under his hands. Baekhyun’s body is as stubborn as he is, reticent and uncommunicative and contradictory. It tenses around Chanyeol’s fingers and relaxes at the sound of Chanyeol’s voice.

“Like this, breathe, Baekhyun, Baekhyunnie, breathe slowly, it’s not gonna work if you don’t relax.”

“What if I can’t relax and it doesn’t work? What if I’m not good at sex what if...”

“If you suck at sex I’ll put your pretty mouth to use and teach you how to blow me,” he says, with a smile, and Baekhyun’s body unknots suddenly at the sound of his voice. Oh, Chanyeol could easily get drunk on the feeling of power rushing through him every time Baekhyun reacts to the sound of his voice.

“If this sucks I will be the one getting a consolatory blowjob, not you,” he says, stubbornly, and Chanyeol is so surprised he has to stop. “Was that a pun, Baekhyun?”

Baekhyun groans. “It wasn’t intentional, ok?”

And Chanyeol laughs and shifts closer and then suddenly Baekhyun is jerking up between a sigh and a sob. It could’ve been a cry if only he’d had enough air in his lungs.

“Feeling good already?”

There’s no answer to his question but the way Baekhyun locks his arms around Chanyeol’s neck, trying to drag him closer, is quite taletelling. Chanyeol teases Baekhyun open until the boy under him is a mess, finding that spot again until Baekhyun does scream.

He fumbles around the condom, has to actually find his phone first because it’s too dark and he doesn’t really know what he’s doing, and for a moment he’s glad Baekhyun can’t see him shaking, too busy with clenching around Chanyeol’s fingers again, tense again, too tense, too lost. Chanyeol leans down to pump his cock into full hardness in fast, tight jerks, until the pressure eases.

It is going to hurt. Even with all the teasing, the foreplay, all the preparation he did, it can’t be an easy fit. It’s Baekhyun’s first time and he’s quite tense, but Chanyeol kisses him again as he slips his fingers off him and rolls the condom on his own cock, smearing lube all over it. It feels heavy in his hands, so hard. He takes a deep breath to calm himself lest he spills in his own hand like an overexcited kid. Baekhyun is touching himself too, and panting, tiny little sounds at the back of his throat. He’s making things so difficult for Chanyeol.

His fingers are sticky with lube and sweat and nerves, but Baekhyun doesn’t seem to mind as he intertwines them with his own. He steals another kiss, to ease the tension between them, but it doesn’t really help.

Their first attempt is messy. The tip of Chanyeol’s dick catches on Baekhyun’s rim, but the boy clenches suddenly and his body rejects Chanyeol.

“Breath, Baekhyunnie, it’s just me.”

“It fucking hurts,” says Baekhyun, tight-lipped, hissing between his teeth when Chanyeol tries again. “But don’t stop,” he adds, as if Chanyeol was going to stop. If he was a tad less excited this would be a complete failure - he’s never taken well to criticism in the bedroom - but as things are, he just wants to fuck Baekhyun so bad there’s no way he’s going to lose the mood. He tries again and this time he can feel it, the breach, the way Baekhyun’s body adapts to his own. They both sigh, Baekhyun in pain and Chanyeol in bliss.

“Does it still hurt?” he asks. He’s shaking, he can feel it, his entire body is shaking from the effort to keep his hips still and not thrust inside Baekhyun, not even if he’s warm, tight and slick from all the lube and perfect.

Baekhyun sobs. He’s shaking too, like a bowstring, and Chanyeol doesn’t know whether he’s the arrow or the archer. “Next time,” Baekhyun says, breathless, “next time I’ll do the topping.” Chanyeol simply laughs at him,”Yes, if you want, whatever you want,” and sweeps down to steal another open-mouthed, messy kiss.

“Just move, it feels terrible.”

It is terrible, a little bit, like all first times are - and one day Chanyeol will tell Baekhyun about his first time just to make him feel better - but to Chanyeol this moment feels amazing, to the point he doesn’t know how much he’ll last.

The rhythm they build is shaky, unsure at first, and Baekhyun is tense and awkward and sounds like he doesn’t know what to do with the moans spilling from his lips, but he lets himself go when Chanyeol picks up the rhythm. He spreads his legs, arches his body, simply enjoys the feeling. He drags Chanyeol closer.

“It’s still terrible?” Chanyeol asks, surprising himself with the way he can still spell words right when the only thing filling his head is just thick desire, the primal instinct of the chase, in and out, wanting the end to come but at the same time hoping this moment can last forever.

“Faster,” answers Baekhyun, like a prayer, like a revelation, “Chanyeol, faster.”

Chanyeol can’t afford to slow down, but he thinks about it - _would Baekhyun beg? Not today, not today but any other day, he should try and see what happens_. He misses a bit and Baekhyun’s nails dig into his shoulder. “Don’t tease,” he says, low and angry and demanding, as if he just read Chanyeol’s mind.

Chanyeol can only comply, faster, faster, until his rhythm is faltering, messy and askew, and Baekhyun’s skin is so slick with perspiration Chanyeol’s fingers scramble for support, unable to anchor themselves on Baekhyun’s hip. It’s fast and it’s amazing and Chanyeol could spent the next fucking century in this bed, just fucking Baekhyun, but he feels the pleasure swimming past him and he drowns in it.

“Baekhyun-ah, I can’t- I won’t last. Touch yourself.”

He can barely feel Baekhyun sneaking a hand between their bodies to get a hold of himself and going over the edge with a soft, surprised cry. In the darkness, Chanyeol comes so hard he can see the stars.

  
**xxix. NOESIS**  
(n)the psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning

Life is not a straight line, nor a crooked one. Life is not a prolonged amount of time. Life is a constellation of moments, of bright lights burned in our memories from our birth to our death, and the task of connecting the dots to reveal the final design is up to us. In the end, what happened is not important as much as what is remembered. The stars burn bright and everything else is cosmic dust.

Chanyeol might not own Baekhyun, but this moment… Chanyeol wants this to be one of those moments Baekhyun can turn up to when he feels sad, when he feels lonely, when he feels like he’s not enough. He wants Baekhyun to remember it, all of it. The cracking of the bed, the breeze coming from the open window. The taste of Baekhyun’s neck, salty and clean, adrenaline and endorphin. The feel of his arms wrapped around Chanyeol’s shoulders, hands linked just below his nape, and the feel of his skin, how it’s burning hot at Chanyeol’s touch, his muscles jumping when Chanyeol kisses him, like flying fish leaping outside the water to have a taste of the sky. The sound, oh, the maddening sounds Baekhyun makes, rising like the tidal wave and breaking on the shore in rivulets of breath, in foam, in moans. The sight. The indescribable sight. What is the sunset compared to Baekhyun’s blush, the redness spreading on his chest and neck, painting his face and ears pink. Eyes screwed shut, alone in the wake of sensation, but never really alone - not when Chanyeol is here - Baekhyun’s lips part and he’s like a blossom opening its petals for the first time. The scent of the dog-rose permeates the air.

  
**xxx. CRYSTALIZE**  
(v) to make free from confusion or ambiguity; to make clear

Red blossoms in the shape of Chanyeol’s mouth on Baekhyun’s throat, on his lips, on the hollow of his collarbone and on his sternum. Red blossoms in the shape of Chanyeol’s hands on Baekhyun’s hips, on his shoulders, on his thighs. Red blossoms outside the window, when dawn breaks and colors the fog of the city crimson and gold.

Baekhyun is still fast asleep in that tangle mess of limbs and fabric that is his bed - their bed. His features are soft, his face a little swollen, in a way that tempts Chanyeol to bite it. It’s morning and he’s hard. He groans, shifting on the bed until he’s humping the mattress and not Baekhyun. He’s sure Baekhyun will wake up soon and nag at him, but it’s better to be scolded for defiling the bed than for defiling your boyfriend while he sleeps.

Baekhyun shifts too and his hand blindly searches the bed for Chanyeol’s body.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he says, and it comes out all raspy and throaty, on the verge of breaking on the last word. He groans when he sits up and then he blushes, remembering why his bottom hurts so much. From his privileged position on the bed, Chanyeol can see the flush spread on his chest. Very nice.

“I’m being considerate of your feelings,” he answers. Would it be too inconsiderate to jerk off next to Baekhyun? Asking for permission seems awkward, but what if he doesn’t ask and Baekhyun realizes anyway and nags at him?

“Which feelings?” Baekhyun sounds confused. He finally finds Chanyeol’s arm and pulls to get him to come closer.

“You get awfully grumpy in the mornings if I touch you without permission,” he explains. He carefully maintains his safety distance, lest he upsets Baekhyun causing him to be moody for the entire day.

“I do not,” declares Baekhyun. Chanyeol doesn’t need to look at him to know he’s pouting.

“You do,” he replies, finally deciding to wrap a hand against his half-hard cock.

“Is that why you’re masturbating next to me? But without me? To be considerate of my feelings?”

Oh, fuck. He realized.

Baekhyun chuckles, but he’s still so sleepy he reminds Chanyeol more of a low purr, an affectionate rumbles that rolls down his throat into the pillow. He follows Chanyeol’s arm until he finds his wrist, tugs until Chanyeol falls all over him and rolls his hips upwards to welcome him. They both groan at the sudden contact and Chanyeol thrusts back against him, forcing a deep, throaty moan out of Baekhyun.

He would fuck him like this, he realizes, when he’s still tender and raw from last night, his skin giving up easily under Chanyeol’s touch. Baekhyun angles his hips, biting a soft cry between his lips, and brings Chanyeol’s hand to his cock.

They’re not new to this, to touching, to teasing, but it’s the first time they’re doing it in broad daylight and Chanyeol can see everything, the heaving of Baekhyun’s chest, up and down, up and down, his lips, slick and parted and chapped from the last night, the way his cock twitch in Chanyeol’s hand, glistening with precum, when Chanyeol jerks him slow and tight. 

Baekhyun’s expression is so unguarded, so raw and open and precious, that Chanyeol has to duck down and hide his head in the hollow between Baekhyun’s neck and shoulder while his face burn. He feels stupid because Baekhyun is his own and he has every right to look at him - he earned those right fairs and square. But looking at Baekhyun right now, his body naked, his face naked, his soul naked, all laid out and bare and helpless, caught in his own pleasure like a fish caught in a net, is impossible, it feels like looking at a miracle, at something unreal. Baekhyun is transcendent and Chanyeol doesn’t know what to do.

“I love you,” he says, and Baekhyun coils against him, arching his back so high it stops touching the bed and Chanyeol can wrap his other arm under him and push him upwards, reveling in the friction of Baekhyun’s thigh against his own cock. He closes his eyes when Baekhyun comes because he doesn’t think he deserves to see it, but he rocks him slowly through his orgasm and he drinks the sound Baekhyun makes, open-mouthed and wet, until he finally lets himself fall back against the damp sheets.

“Touch me,” he says, like a prayer. He opens his eyes and everything is still blurred, the need to come is fogging his vision at the edges, but he can see Baekhyun shining pink and gold as sunrise slowly melts into the blue sky.

Baekhyun touches him. His jaw, his neck. He twists a nipple, lazily, and Chanyeol ruts down against him and thinks about forcing Baekhyun’s hand down, around his cock. “Don’t tease,” he murmurs, an echo of the same words he received from Baekhyun the previous night, three fingers inside his boyfriend’s ass, teasing him until Baekhyun was on the verge of tears. And then later again, when he thought of making him beg. Now he’s not beyond begging himself. Baekhyun remembers that too and goes even slower, caressing Chanyeol’s abs, his hips. His nails dig at the small of Chanyeol’s back and then they slide down, fondling his ass.

“Byun Baekhyun, you either touch me now or...” He doesn’t even finish the sentence, just takes Baekhyun by the wrist and leads his fingers to his cock. Baekhyun giggles at his impatience, lazy and already sated, and Chanyeol would snarl at him if it could actually do him some good, but he knows it would only amuse Baekhyun more.

Baekhyun’s technique is clumsy and temptative. He likes it faster than Chanyeol does, but his grip is looser. His hands are softer than Chanyeol’s and there’s barely the friction he needs to come. He makes a needy, impatient noise at the back of his throat before closing his hand around Baekhyun’s and forcing him to hold tighter, harsher. His hips jerk, erratically, and when he leans his head on Baekhyun’s shoulder again his breath shatters in a gasp as Baekhyun says, with the tiniest voice Chanyeol has ever heard, “Come for me.”

Oh, Chanyeol does.

He doesn’t realize he was dozing off until Baekhyun shakes him awake.

“I’m sticky,” he says. “And you’re heavy.” He tries to sound grumpy, but there’s no real bite behind his words. On the contrary, when Chanyeol looks at him, Baekhyun is smiling. He’s bruised and tender all over, his skin is littered with mark bites and his hair a mess. But he smiles. The dawn has turned into early morning and the room is flooded with light, but there’s nothing as bright as his smile in Chanyeol’s world.

“How are you feeling?” he asks, long minutes drifting into half an hour of content slumber.

“Wanna sleep,” murmurs Baekhyun. “You?”

Chanyeol flexes his arms, feeling the blood slowly coming back. He feels like someone just poured honey inside his limbs, boneless.

“I want to fuck you again.”

Baekhyun turns his back to him to hide his smile, but Chanyeol props himself up on his elbow to see it, stretching his face.

“I never thought something like that would happen to me,” says Baekhyun and his voice doesn’t shake. “I just never thought someone would take the time... I mean. It took time. Not only the sex, everything. You got me roses on my birthday.” Now he’s barely making any sense but Chanyeol somehow understands. It’s too early for this conversation. Baekhyun’s lips are too red and swollen for these heavy words. “If you had asked me five years ago... Before you arrived... My past self would’ve laughed in your face. I was really convinced I would’ve never gotten the chance to... be like this with someone. Sex was something foreign. Going out was something abstract. I used to think romantic love existed to mock me, because I could never get a significant someone. I mean, I’m not unaware of what I am. I know myself. Who could ever like someone like me?”

Chanyeol. Chanyeol can. Chanyeol does.

“Five years ago, more or less, I started living alone,” he starts. Baekhyun’s hair is too long between his fingers. The boy leans into his touch, fitting perfectly in Chanyeol’s arms. Normally he would protest, morning moodiness and everything, but the orgasm has left him boneless, warm and lax against Chanyeol.

“Was it because you were gay?” he asks. “I mean, your mother seems to disapprove.”

Chanyeol scoffs. That’s quite a simple way to put it. “If you think my mother disapproves it’s only because you haven’t seen my father back then. He beat me, the day before I left, for the first time in his life.” And also the last. “And so I decided to leave. My parents thought I had a boyfriend and I was angry about the beating and that I would come home in a few days, like the other times I had run away from home.”

“There were other times?” asks Baekhyun, curious.

“Well, I was a very moody teenager. When something made me angry I slept at my friends’ houses for a few days, but I wouldn’t call that running away from home.”

Baekhyun shivers and Chanyeol pulls the blanket over them and sighs, knowing it’ll take hours to coax Baekhyun out of the warm bed afterwards, but he can’t help it. Baekhyun hums in contentment and Chanyeol twists his left nipple, just to tease him.

“Stop that, I’m ticklish!” he hisses, swatting one of Chanyeol’s wandering hands away from his chest. Chanyeol complies with a pout.

“Did you really leave because you had a boyfriend?” asks Baekhyun. He frowns, as if something is not adding up in his mind. “Have you ever had a boyfriend? You don’t seem like the type who would want a boyfriend.”

Accurate and sharp, that’s Chanyeol’s Baekhyun.

“I didn’t have a boyfriend. There were people in my life but I liked to fuck more than I liked to date. To be honest, I’ve always thought dating was for losers. What I mean is... I’ve never put so much effort into someone. I’ve never really found someone who was worth all this effort. Waiting five years for a boy to notice me? That’s stupid, isn’t it? But look at me now. You could say jump, and I’d jump. I’d really jump, Baekhyun.”

“Why?”

Ah, the very important question. The one Baekhyun has never dared to ask.

“Why me? Why us? I can’t believe you never met someone better than me.”

Chanyeol can’t believe it either. And yet... And yet. He doesn’t know where it started. Somewhere, along the lines of a fierce, deep hatred and fake, forced politeness. Between the rules of a game that kept changing and changing, a game none of them could win. At the bottom of a glass of _cojinganmek_ , the first time Chanyeol got Baekhyun drunk, one windy night of May, one year ago, in front of the Han river. The night of Baekhyun’s birthday. The air was crisp and clear and Baekhyun’s face was blotched red from the evening air. He said many things. _I feel alive. I want to dance. Can you believe we’re traveling in space? I think I’m a little in love with you._

Chanyeol’s relationship with Baekhyun used to be a straight, black line separating two people. Maybe that night, the ink was smudged. Where did it come from, that sudden desire to answer _maybe I love you back_ hoping Baekhyun was too drunk to remember it the morning after? Chanyeol should’ve run away from such a dangerous thought. Instead, he leaned over and brushed Baekhyun’s fringe away from his forehead and he thought Baekhyun was the worst person for him and he was the worst person for Baekhyun. 

They should’ve just fucked, he thought, to get the tension out of their system and go on with their lives, because there was no way two people like them could ever be together. Water and oil that’s what we are, he mused. And then, this game is becoming so old and boring, I should just end it. He got up, to tell Baekhyun, to not say these things, to not talk about love when he was drunk - especially when Chanyeol was drunk too and didn’t know how to react. His head was spinning so hard every word felt like it was coming from the center of the storm. He didn’t blink. “Maybe I love you back.”

In the end, Baekhyun was too drunk to remember those words, but Chanyeol doesn’t forget. The way he giggled and clung to his neck on their way back. The way he drooled on his shoulder, head lolling dangerously on one side, trying to whistle and failing, so warm, so warm.

Chanyeol remembers the sheer, insistent hunger he felt, to take Baekhyun home and fuck him like this, loose and lax, sprawled on the bed, so warm, so warm, to leave the morning after and never come back. He used to use sex like a weapon. To steal a moment and then leave and break up with people before they could even be together. He thought about breaking Baekhyun’s heart just because he could, to get rid of this insistent, swelling feeling in his chest.

_But I’m not ready to let this go._

It was a fleeting, passing thought, so delicate, so fleeting, so powerful, like a revelation in the light of the night, so unlike everything Chanyeol had ever thought himself to be - manipulative, competitive, sly and ruthless, and selfish, above everything else - that Chanyeol had to stop for a moment to retrace the lines his tipsy mind was blurring. He breathed in and smelled Baekhyun. He looked at the cloudy sky and felt like he was the sky, looking at himself from a great distance, unable to recognize the person he was becoming. _What are you doing, Park Chanyeol? Is he that important, for you to be so flustered? Get a grip over yourself._

Baekhyun fell asleep on his shoulder in the elevator and Chanyeol could only stare at his own, flabbergasted reflection, fifty-percent accusing and fifty-percent guilty. Once inside the house, he put Baekhyun to bed and finally collapsed against the door of the apartment, holding his head in his hands and wondering how far was he really going to go with Baekhyun. If he had been smart, he would’ve gone through that door to never come back. Chanyeol was smart, sometimes.

_I’m not ready to let this go._

Sometimes he wasn’t. That was one year ago. Chanyeol he’s still deciding whether staying, that night, had been a smart move after all.

“Why aren’t you answering, Chanyeol?” Baekhyun is still waiting for an answer, but Chanyeol doesn’t really have one. He should’ve left Baekhyun a long time ago. He did try to leave Baekhyun a long time ago, when he realized he was getting attached, breaking his rule to never get emotionally involved with anyone, and Baekhyun had chased him back. Baekhyun, blind, angry and clueless, who showed up at Chanyeol’s door asking for help. And then, after that, the game, the game was the excuse. And then Chanyeol wasn’t ready, just another day, just another time. Baekhyun was just so endearing.

“I don’t know the right answer. I asked myself the same question, over and over, until one day I didn’t need to know the reason anymore. It just happened. Right now, I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to let you go.”

  
**xxxi. COMMENCEMENT**  
(n) the act of starting out, blazing a new trail

“Where are we going?”

“Ssssh, wait just a little...”

“Oh, come on, tell me!”

“It would ruin the surprise!”

“But I want to know!”

“You’re so impatient.”

“You’re so cruel!”

“You’re _so_ cute!”

“You’re _so_ impossible!”

A soft laugh. Chanyeol pouts and Baekhyun laughs again.

“That’s what I usually have to put up with,” he says, and it’s both fond and amused. Chanyeol makes a mental promise to never tease Baekhyun with surprise events again. This is torture. He wants to open his eyes so bad... Just a peek, that’s all he wants to do, Baekhyun would never know...

The car stops. He hears Baekhyun talking to Howon, his personal driver, “Can you... please?”. and one of the car doors is opened, then another. Howon is probably helping Baekhyun out.

“Can I open my eyes now?” he asks, in the whiniest tone he can muster. Baekhyun’s reply comes from outside the car. “Don’t you dare!”

Someone, Howon again, opens the door at Chanyeol’s right. “Can you get out on your own?”

Chanyeol can try. It’s a little difficult, to move without having any idea where he is. Maybe he should try one of Baekhyun’s mobility classes in the future, not because he really needs it but just to be able to know what Baekhyun feels. He almost trips on the ground - being blind is trickier than he expected - but Howon catches him and Chanyeol finally finds himself standing outside, on shaky feet. The sun is warm and the wind graces his face gently. He breathes grass, flowers and the expensive leather of the car interiors. 

“Well, uhm, I’ll leave you two here. You can call me when you need to come back, sir.”

“Thank you, Howon-ah,” chirps happily Baekhyun. Chanyeol can hear the smile in his voice. _Ah,_ he thinks, _this is what Baekhyun must feel._

“Can I open my eyes now?” he asks, as petulant as he can, only because he knows Baekhyun will laugh and Baekhyun’s laugh is precious.

“Don’t you want to guess?” asks Baekhyun, the little tease. “Try once!”

“Well, we’re outside. A park? A garden? There are flowers around.” He can hear little children laughing happily and playing games, adult people talking. He can hear laughs and exclamations of surprise.

“Yes, that’s right. Can you tell me what kind of flowers?” Baekhyun is smiling, Chanyeol _knows_ he is smiling and he can’t see it, and it’s maddening.

“How can I know? I’m not good with flowers, you’re the expert...”

“You should learn to recognize the fragrance of the flowers, at least. They’re important.” 

Oh, this brings back memories. Baekhyun said something similar, when was it? Two years ago? The roses were in bloom, he still lived with his mother and... The roses!

Chanyeol opens his eyes and the sight makes him speechless. It steals the words from his mouth, one by one, and turns them into colors. Red, white, pink, bright magenta and molten gold There are colors everywhere. The roses are in bloom and Baekhyun’s smile is still more colorful than all the flowers in the garden.

“You opened your eyes,” says Baekhyun, because _of course_ he would know. “But it seems like you managed to guess by yourself before you did it, so you’re forgiven. Do you know where we are now?”

Chanyeol knows. “The Seoul Rose Festival. Ah, I feel so lame now. I promised to take you here, didn’t I? And I completely forgot.”

Baekhyun’s smile widens. “Yes, you did. You’re a terrible boyfriend. But at least you have me, the most perfect boyfriend in the world.”

“The most beautiful,” says Chanyeol, “and dedicated, and passionate, and also a little bitch at times, but what’s life without spice?”

“You were going so well, but you ruined it at the end. So,” he says, and his cheeks are red, the tips of his ears even redder and the wing has messed up with his hair while Chanyeol wasn’t looking, “don’t you want to show me around?”

Chanyeol catches his hand like he would catch a butterfly. He holds it tight, dwarfed in his own, cradled in his warmth, and uses it to tug Baekhyun close. “I want to show you around the world. I want to give you everything.” And he’s so pathetic, so in love, saying cheesy things, ready to do cheesy stuff, like a loser. Maybe he is a loser, but he loves Baekhyun, who is soft and sharp, loud and warm, Baekhyun who has both beauty and thorns, just like a rose.

“Then do it, Chanyeol. Tell me about the roses, tell me about the sun and the clouds and the airplane trails in the sky. Tell me about everything. It’ll be alright, because it’s you.”

“Do you love me so much?” he asks, before he can stop himself.

Baekhyun doesn’t hesitate, not for a split moment.

“Yes, I do.”

He makes it sound so easy. But Chanyeol knows how difficult Baekhyun can be, how stubborn and self-deprecating and insincere and also how much of a coward, mean-spirited and ready to hurt before he can be hurt. Chanyeol knows the weight of this words. How long did Baekhyun cradle them in his mind, in the hollow between his ribs, at the tip of his tongue, too afraid to say them? Why did Chanyeol fail to notice he was getting ready to say them all along?

“Next year,” he says, “no, next year is too soon. In three years, in five years, in ten years and in fifteen years and in fifty years. Let’s meet again here, Baekhyun.”

It’s almost the end of May and the roses are in bloom and soon the spring will turn into summer and Chanyeol will take Baekhyun to the sea. Jeju Island maybe, or even farther, further, beyond the line of the horizon, chasing the sun on the other side of the world.  
Baekhyun doesn’t know but Chanyeol has already planned everything. He wants to wait at least other six months. He wants to ask him to live together. Chanyeol wants to get Baekhyun a guide dog and call her Sandara. He wants Baekhyun to come with him at boring family dinners and rowdy company drinking nights. He wants Baekhyun, both with the tiny little steps and the big, warm gestures. He wants Baekhyun and he already has him, so he just has to stay quiet, keep his cool and wait for the right moment to actually come. Slowly, carefully, all of Baekhyun’s layers, all of Baekhyun’s defenses must be peeled to reveal the sweetness lying underneath, and the only person who can do this is...

“Chanyeol, let’s live together.”

_Oh, well, seems like he beat me to it. Of course, it’s Baekhyun._

He says yes.

  
**~Epilogue~**

**xxxii. HOPEFULNESS**  
(n) the feeling of having hope

Chanyeol feels terribly guilty for being late and he knows, _he knows_ Baekhyun will nag at him. But when he opens the door and tiptoes inside the room, only Mongryong looks at him with accusing eyes. Sandara simply ignores all of them and goes back to her scratching post. Chanyeol pads through the room towards the bedroom and slowly pushes the door open to reveal the cocoon of blankets and warm skin that is his boyfriend, still in bed, pretending it’s not past midday and he’s not angry with Chanyeol for being late.

“Baekhyun-ah, I’m home,” he says softly, (he knows better not to shake him,) but Baekhyun simply turns his back to him and hides his head under the pillow. “Baekhyun-aaaah,” he repeats, adding a little whine, “come on, I’m not too late! Something happened at the office and I couldn’t leave earlier.”

Baekhyun emerges from his bed kingdom. He raises a questioning eyebrow when Chanyeol tells him to get up and takes approximately forever to roll out of bed and get dressed. Chanyeol tries not to tell him to hurry, even if he should hurry, because he knows Baekhyun would only point out it was Chanyeol’s fault in the beginning for coming home early and ruining their date.

“He’s so childish,” he says, to their pets. Mongryong scratches his ears, not really agreeing. Sandara ignores him. Their Siberian cat only loves Baekhyun. Chanyeol takes his revenge by picking her up, knowing she hates being petted by anyone but her only master Byun Baekhyun, and reminding her how much they paid for her fat ass.

“We only paid that much because someone is allergic to cats and needed a hypoallergenic cat. Don’t blame Sandara for your own shortcomings, Park Chanyeol.”

“I’m only letting you go because we’re already late and fighting about you would make us even later,” whispers Chanyeol to the cat before finally allowing her to escape.

“Have you finished antagonizing the pets?” asks Baekhyun, already on the door.

“Have you taken the dog?”

“Yes, let’s go.”

The sky was already dark since the early morning, but by the time they reach the venue it’s already started raining.

“Oh.” Chanyeol looks at the stormy clouds. He winces when lightning lifts the veil of darkness from the sky. Thunder rumbles in the distance. “This sucks.”

He circles the car, cursing at the misty, nasty drizzle attacking him from every direction, and opens the door on Baekhyun’s side. “Let me guess. Is it raining?” asks Baekhyun, in a mocking, know-it-all tone.

“Our Baekhyun has sharp ears. Don’t forget the umbrella, we’ll need it.”

The pathway is muddy and the sky is grey and it’s not cold, but a bit uncomfortable. Chanyeol takes the umbrella from Baekhyun and opens it, covering them both. He links arms with Baekhyun, keeping him close.

“So, would you tell me where we are, Chanyeol?”

“Mmmh, no? You can try and guess, since you’re so keen on being a smartass today.”

Baekhyun pinches him, annoyed. Chanyeol pinches him back. They walk towards the ticket stand and Chanyeol tells Baekhyun to wait and hold Mongryong as he buys two tickets. When he comes back, he finds Baekhyun chatting with a little girl with squishy cheeks and messy pigtails. He’s tilting his head down even if he can see her, out of habit, and he’s smiling at the way Mongryong pulls on the leash to smell her.

“Why are you wearing sunglasses if there’s not sun?” she asks, pointing her finger to the boy’s face. Her father rushes towards her and murmurs a quick apology. “Forgive her, she’s really nosy. Apologize, Min-ji!”

“No, it’s fine.” Baekhyun’s smile turns a little forced, but not enough to make it awkward. “I wear sunglasses because I can’t see and sometimes looking at me makes people uncomfortable.”

“Oh, that’s why you have the dog!” Baekhyun nods. “Can I pet him?” She moves towards Mongryong before Baekhyun can react and falls on her butt when the dog growls.

“Forgive him, he doesn’t really like to be touched by strangers...” Chanyeol can spot the uneasiness on his boyfriend. He grabs the ticket and quickly steps in, making his presence known with a fond, “Give me the umbrella, Baekhyun-ah.” He leaves the tickets in Baekhyun’s hand and takes the umbrella instead. It’s not big enough to shield them both, but he likes the idea of having to keep Baekhyun closer.

He can feel the eyes of the man in front of him, lingering on the inexistent space between them, and he can almost see the thoughts swimming in his head. He takes Baekhyun’s hand and holds it firmly. The line of the man’s jaw hardens. Their eyes meet and Chanyeol is not the one who looks away. “Come on Min-ji, mom is waiting... Say goodbye!”

She bows quickly. “Goodbye _ahjussi_! Have fun!”

“Sorry again if she bothered you, have a nice day!” says her father, and they both walk away quickly. Chanyeol glares at him until he’s disappeared.

“Thank you, my knight in a shining armor,” jokes Baekhyun. “For saving me from the monster!” He says it lightly, but Chanyeol knows he’s probably sensed the hostility from the child’s father. He doesn’t address it and nor does Chanyeol.

“Oh come on, she was an eight year old child, not a monster. You were handling her well.”

“The same can’t be said for Mongryongie,” he murmurs, crouching down to pet the Labradoodle. “I’m sorry buddy, I couldn’t stop her.”

“People are not supposed to pet a guide dog. Mongryongie did the only right thing and I’m proud of him. He’ll get treats later. “ He ignores Baekhyun’s whisper of, “She was only a child though,” to sneak a hand around his boyfriend’s shoulder and pull him close. He can feel people staring but he doesn’t care. He’s grateful for the rain, because it’s not very crowded. Baekhyun doesn’t fare well with crowds. Sometimes, Chanyeol is grateful Baekhyun can’t see. The stares would hurt him. There’s nothing to be done about the whispers though, but it doesn’t matter. Today the rain will eat them too.

They walk slowly up the hill. Chanyeol can see Baekhyun at the corner of his eyes, unusually focused on his surroundings as he tries to guess where Chanyeol has brought him. He smiles, unseen, wondering if Baekhyun remembers that promise from three years ago.

“So, do you ever plan to tell me where we’re going?” Baekhyun asks, the voice muffled by the fluffy scarf around his neck, a gift from Jongdae for his birthday, only two weeks ago. He extends a hand. “Looks like the rain has stopped. Ah, no, fuck!” A lonely drop falls on his forehead. “Where are we, Chanyeol?”

“I thought I told you to guess,” teases Chanyeol. “Come on, try!”

“Mmmh, we’re still outside. Don’t laugh, idiot, it’s not obvious for me. Is this a park? Do you want to take me to the Han River? To get drunk? Don’t you have a meeting at work tomorrow, Park Chanyeol?”

Chanyeol pretends to be offended. “I wouldn’t get drunk the day before a meeting, you think so lowly of me! And yes, this is a park.”

Baekhyun is quiet for a few seconds, when his face finally lights up as he breathes in the smell of rain, wet earth and…

“Roses! Is this a rose garden?” he asks, shaking excitedly.

Chanyeol claps, imitating the sound of a victory fanfare.

“That’s right! We’re at the Seoul Rose Festival.” He waits for the words to sink into Baekhyun, watches him open his mouth in awe as memories dawn on him until... he throws himself at Chanyeol, almost missing him.

“You remembered it,” he says, “you really remembered it Chanyeol, I can’t believe it!”

_Next year- no, next year is too soon. In three years, in five years, in ten years and in fifteen years and in fifty years. Let’s meet again here, Baekhyun._

And now they’re here. It’s raining and cold and it’s terrible and the roses look really pathetic, shivering in the cold wind, but Baekhyun is sobbing into Chanyeol’s coat. Not really crying, just... sobbing. And muttering something about promises and Chanyeol being the best boyfriend ever and Chanyeol can’t help the soft sigh that escapes his lips, rolling down his chest, where the warmest feeling has finally settled up and is now spreading to Chanyeol’s entire body. “Ah, this is what it feels to do something right.”

Baekhyun lets him go only to show him his stern face. “What are you talking about? You always do things right, Park Chanyeol. You are the best boyfriend here, _my_ boyfriend.”

“I wouldn’t know about that, but I am definitely the luckiest.”

Baekhyun tiptoes to kiss him but stop just a breath away from Chanyeol’s lips. He looks self-conscious. He doesn’t dare to kiss Chanyeol in public, not even like this, in the rose tunnel when no one else is watching - oh, but Baekhyun doesn’t know no one else is watching, right? Chanyeol is the one who kisses him, and if someone is watching fuck them. He still can feel the scratches Baekhyun left on his shoulder two nights ago and he knows that somewhere, under that red, fluffy scarf, Baekhyun his hiding his own marks, old and new, all left by Chanyeol. He can kiss this boy if he wants. His boy, Chanyeol’s boy. He can kiss him and he does.

It’s a messy kiss and Baekhyun’s sunglasses are obnoxiously in the way so Chanyeol gets rid of them and enjoys the little, satisfied moan Baekhyun lets out when Chanyeol tugs at his upper lip with his teeth.

“The best,” Baekhyun repeats, and something sinks in Chanyeol’s heart. He licks the seam of Baekhyun’s lips, lowering the umbrella to protect them for prying eyes as the kiss becomes wetter, louder, hungrier, as Chanyeol tries to convey with his body what he struggles to put in words.

“Not really,” he says, when they part to breathe. He is far from being the best for Baekhyun, but somehow, he doesn’t really care about doing the right thing. He just wants to be with Baekhyun. “I wanted to ask you to marry me, Baekhyun, but look at this... It’s raining and cold and you’re all wet and I even managed to come home late today...”

Baekhyun looks, for a moment, terribly melancholic and terribly beautiful. The seconds he doesn’t say anything turn to centuries in Chanyeol’s mind, until he finally speaks. “You are, you... Silly you. Silly Chanyeol.”

He doesn’t say anything else, just tugs Chanyeol closer and parts his lips, a silent invitation. Chanyeol closes his eyes and drowns in the kiss.

They walk under the rain, and Mongryong pulls on the leash and whines pitifully to be let free. He doesn’t dare to do that with Baekhyun, but he knows he can afford to play with Chanyeol. He’s spoiled like that.

Baekhyun squeezes Chanyeol’s hand and stops. The cry of the rain is deafening. They’re alone under the umbrella, in their secret world where no one else is allowed to enter.

“You saved me, Chanyeol.”

But Chanyeol shakes his head because… There are many things Baekhyun can’t see.  
“You saved yourself, Baekhyun.”

“But you were here with me, all this time, you never left me alone. You stayed. You never promised me eternal love but you never left me either. You told me you’d bring me to see the roses in May and you did it, and it’s more than everyone else in my life has ever done for me.”

Actions speak louder than words and Baekhyun speaks louder than both action and words. He takes Chanyeol’s face in his hands and leans his forehead against Chanyeol’s. His hair is wet and messy, his expression is soft. He is so casually charming, completely unaware. Chanyeol almost kisses him again.

“I don’t care that you’re not perfect, Chanyeol. I love you. I just love you.”

Chanyeol closes his eyes and lets the umbrella drop because he has to hug Baekhyun and hold him with both his hands, with all his body, as if he never wants to let him go. _He still never wants to let him go._

“This year was a failure,” he says, voice tight and shaky, “but let’s come back here. Together. Next year. And the year later. And let’s get married someday.”

Baekhyun says yes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations  
> cojinganmek: terrible cocktail of coke, soju and beer. lethal.  
> ahjussi: man, uncle, mister, a simple way to call an older man you're not close with or related
> 
> -the pets are a Siberian Cat and a Labradoodle, a dog and a cat who don't shed and are really good for people with allergies (like Chanyeol). The Labradoodle was especially created to be a guide dog for blind people who had allergies.  
> -The [Seoul Rose Festival](http://english.visitseoul.net/event-festival/Seoul-Rose-Festival_/16722#) exists and it's beautiful, if you visit Seoul in May think about paying it a visit!  
> -All hail the smut!
> 
> I hope you liked this fic as much as I did, it started to angsty and dark but the ending is so fluffy it doesn't even seem written by the same person. I have a weak heart *sigh*  
> And thank you for putting up with me. every kudos (here on ao3 or on livejournal), every comment, everyone who talked about this fic on twitter or recced it on tumblr really helped me. Thank you so much.  
> As usual, let me know what you think, leave a comment, message me, drop a word or two on twitter (@aprilclaws).. The only thing I want is to interact with my readers, so don't hesitate to talk with me. I've been told I am approachable and not scary and I love makign new friends!  
> Until the next time <3<3<3

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated and if you want to chat you can find me on twitter @/aprilclaws~


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